Dominican trade deficit improves, slightly

posted on: Mar 14 2010 11:4 by Royston. Viewed 430 times.


Dominican Republic ended  2009 with a deficit of US$6,820 million in its trade with the rest of the world.
Last year's exports totaled about US$5,463 million, while imports US$12,283 million.


However, the deficit fell 26.2 percent compared to 2008 when it was US$9,245 million.

2008 saw prices of commodities, including oil, reaching record highs, pushing up Dominican imports, thus exaggerating the deficit trend.

Despite the improvement in 2009, the trade deficit remains the second highest in the last six years.
However, imports fell by 23.2% in 2009, the first time in 5 years this has happened. Also last year, oil imports fell 37.4 percent, which  contributed to reducing the trade deficit.

Last year, exports from the Free Trade Zones shrank in 13.1 percent, the highest drop in the last four years. This makes 4 consecutive years of reducing levels of exports. Despite this, the zones still account for 69% of total exports.

The country ended 2009 with a deficit with it�s biggest trading partner, the USA, of US$1,941 million, completing five consecutive years of negative trade balance.

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