Hotel, bar and restaurant sector records growth of 9.2 %

Santo Domingo—The Central Bank, in the interest of keeping economic agents and the public opinion in general duly informed and as part of its institutional commitment to transparency and timely disclosure of data under its responsibility, informs the preliminary results of economic activity as of May 2024.

Hotels, bars, and restaurants exhibited an accumulated inter-annual variation of 9.2 % from January to May 2024. This remarkable dynamism was largely supported by the arrival of 3,716,262 tourists by air during the first five months of the year and 1,284,635 excursionists, for a total of 5,000,897 visitors from January to May 2024. Likewise, the consolidated credit portfolio directed to the sector increased by 27.6% compared to May 2023.

Construction, which has a significant multiplying and dragging effect on other economic sectors, showed a year-on-year growth of 4.4% in January-May 2024. This activity is expected to perform better in the coming months as the impact on the expectations of the content of the reforms that could be implemented this year clears.

On the other hand, local manufacturing recorded an average year-on-year increase of 2.7% during the first five months of 2024, mainly supported by the performance of different food products and base metals manufacturing. Likewise, the 5.8 % year-on-year expansion in the real value added of free trade zone manufacturing is primarily explained by exports amounting to US$3,469.0 million in January-May 2024.

Agricultural activity showed an inter-annual growth of 4.0 % in January-May of this year, with increases in the production of rice, banana, avocado, chicken, and eggs, among others. The technical and financial support to agricultural producers at the national level provided by the Government through the Ministry of Agriculture has had an important impact.

Finally, all economic activities recorded a positive performance in January-May 2024, with the exception of Mining, whose 16.5% drop is mainly explained by the temporary cessation of operations of the ferronickel extraction company since December 2023 and the slowdown in the gold extraction process due to the readjustment plan of facilities required for the continuity of the mining activity in the country’s main deposit.