This means that the economy has grown at an annual average rate of 9.4% since the crisis of 2004. He said that the growth had created at least 345,000 new jobs in the economy.
The economy's decent performance has led to the rebuilding of reserves and an inflow of foreign direct investment. The inflow of FDI was US$1.11bn in the first nine months, while the inflow of remittances was US$2.1bn. The remittance flow as 7.4% up on the same period of 2006. The central bank said that if it had not intervened in the foreign exchange market, and thus built up reserves, the peso would have appreciated to RD$29 to the dollar rather than held its current rate of RD$33.
Exports for the first nine months of 2007 came to US$1.954bn. This was US$526m more than for the same period of 2006. The central bank reckons that exports for 2007 will top US$2.5bn. The central bank's net reserves have risen from US$1.78bn at the beginning of 2007 to US$2.41bn.
The fiscal deficit has come down from 4% of GDP in 2004 to about 2.5% in 2006 and should be close to 1.9% by the end of this year.
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