Dominican exports increase 9.7 percent in the first quarter
The president of the Dominican Association of Exporters (Adoexpo), Elizabeth Mena, stated that exports at the end of the first quarter of 2021 totaled 2.75 billion dollars, which represents a growth of 9.7% compared to the same period last year.
The business leader highlighted that last March reported record figures for Dominican exports, which achieved an amount of 1.1 billion dollars, compared to the 816 million that were exported in that same month of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic started to take a toll on exports.
Mena said that the countries that registered the highest volumes in this first quarter of the year were (all in U.S. Dollar:
United States – 1.41 billion
Switzerland 273.6 million
Haiti – 222.062 million
India – 146,789 million
Puerto Rico – 136,070
The figures represent a growth of 13.8%, 41.7%, 8.4%, 56.3%, and 24.7% respectively, compared to the January-March 2020 period.
The president of Adoexpo stated that the Free Zones sector was the one that gave the most boost to exports, with 1,65 billion dollars and a growth of 15.6% compared to the quarter of last year, showing a rebound in January, February and March compared to 2020, with a positive trend.
“This behavior was influenced by items such as cigarettes, which reached an amount of 259,1 million for a growth of 55.1%, followed by medical instruments for 252,4 million dollars, for 2.8% and electrical circuit devices for 202,6 million dollars, for an increase of 13.6%”, said Mena.
She pointed out that the United States covers 73.8% of Dominican exports in the Free Zones line.
“Excluding the Free Zones regime 1,09 billion dollars were exported, reflecting a growth of 1.8% in the January-March quarter of 2021, compared to the same period of the previous year, which lagged a little the first two months of the year, but already in the month of March they reported a growth of 28.9% compared to March 2020”, added Mena.
Regarding mining inputs and raw materials, she indicated that they represented a boom last March, being Switzerland, India, and the United States the largest buyers, increased by 1.2%; while national non-mining products grew by 2.3%, being iron one of the products with the highest growth with 59.8% for an amount of USD $ 37,075,625, mainly due to the demand for steel rods.