Demand for products manufactured in the Dominican Republic decreases

Santo Domingo.- Data from the Ministry of Economy, Planning, and Development (Mepyd) reveals that the real value of demand for manufactured products in July was 107,473.5 million pesos, marking a 3.9% year-on-year reduction. For the year as a whole, this indicator has reached 770,802.3 million pesos, a decrease of 1.5% compared to the same period in the previous year.

The July performance is primarily influenced by local manufacturing operations and local manufacturing exports, which saw reductions of 5.0% and 25.2% in real terms, respectively.

In contrast, real exports from free zones experienced a 6.4% increase in that month. However, the overall performance of manufacturing exports from free zones for the January-July period saw a reduction of 3.4% compared to the previous year. This was attributed to decreased exports in jewelry items and cigars.

Local manufacturing exports also had a significant impact, with a cumulative reduction of 12.3%, driven by decreased exports of iron or steel rods and plastic tableware.

Additionally, the producer price index (PPI) for goods, which measures the average percentage change in the prices of manufactured goods characteristic of national production, reached a value of 159.9 in July. It accumulated a growth of 1.9%, which was lower by 6.7 percentage points compared to the same period in the previous year. The growth of the PPI was influenced by various sectors, including food products, textiles, non-metallic mineral products, clothing, electrical equipment, and chemical products, contributing jointly to a significant portion of the growth.