Above: the Dominican Republic (CJ Photo)
By the Caribbean Journal staff
The Dominican Republic will be receiving a $250 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank to boost productivity and improve the country’s business climate.
The loan will target the “Programme to Improve Productivity,” addressing what the IDB called the “urgent need to promote reforms that increase the productivity of micro-, small- and medium-sized companies.”
Such firms account for 97 percent of all companies in the country and 30 percent of its Gross Domestic Product.
Compared to other states in Latin America and the Caribbean and the United States, productivity in the Dominican Republic has been flat since the late 1990s, according to the IDB.
“The program aims to help trigger a rise in productivity,” the bank said.
The programme’s loan will help fund changes designed to strengthen banking regulation and facilitate financing for the aforementioned firms.
The loan is over a 17.5 year period.