COVID-19 changes trade at the Dominican Republic—Haitian border

SANTO DOMINGO. – The closure of the Dominican-Haitian border carried out by Dominican and Haitian authorities to prevent the importation of contagions from the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way of doing business in that area.

Haitian customers are demanding that Dominican merchants apply the “delivery” modality which implies delays in the deliveries of goods by Dominicans, increases costs, and increases the risk of crossing the border with goods due to the prevailing insecurity in Haiti, indicates the second analysis of the border market during the COVID -19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, the use of the networks facilitates informal commerce, allowing informal commercial transactions to continue to be carried out, giving signs of modernity and agility to the commercial operations carried out in the border area.

According to Juan Del Rosario Santana, director of the Socioeconomic Research Institute of the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, this led to a change in the merchants’ market strategy.

“In the case of Haitian clients, they chose to make their purchases in the Elías Piña market due to the stability that it offers even in times of pandemic and they stopped visiting Jimaní and other markets,” said the economist.