The hotel, bar and restaurant sector grows by 9.2%.

Santo Domingo-The Central Bank, in order to properly inform economic operators and the public and as part of its institutional commitment to transparency and timely disclosure of data for which it is responsible, provides preliminary results of economic activity for May 2024.

Hotels, bars and restaurants showed a cumulative year-on-year variation of 9.2% from January to May 2024. This remarkable dynamic was largely influenced by the arrival of 3,716,262 tourists by air in the first five months of the year and 1,284,635 tourists in a total of 5,000,897 guests from January to May 2024. Similarly, the consolidated credit portfolio directed to the sector increased by 27.6% compared to May 2023.

Construction, which has a significant spillover and spillover effect on other sectors of the economy, showed year-on-year growth of 4.4% in January-May 2024. This activity is expected to outperform in the coming months as the impact on expectations regarding the content of reforms that can be implemented this year will become clear.

On the other hand, local production recorded an average year-on-year growth of 2.7% in the first five months of 2024, mainly driven by the performance of various food products and base metal production. Similarly, the 5.8% year-on-year increase in the real value added of production in the free trade area is mainly explained by exports of USD 3,469.0 million in January-May 2024.

Agricultural activity showed an inter-annual increase of 4.0% in January-May this year, with increased production of rice, bananas, avocados, chicken and eggs, among others. Technical and financial support to agricultural producers at the national level, provided by the government through the Ministry of Agriculture, had a significant impact.

Finally, in the period January-May 2024, all economic activities recorded a positive result, with the exception of Mining, the decline of which by 16.5% is mainly due to the temporary cessation of operations of the ferronickel mining company from December 2023 and the slowdown in the gold mining process due to a plan to adapt facilities necessary to ensure the continuity of mining activities in the country’s main deposit.