Weekly Report - 12 April 2005

HONDURAS | Modest growth expected. The central bank announced last week that GDP growth this year is expected to be somewhere between 4% and 4.5%. With population growth running at 2.4%, this will translate into per capita growth of at most 2%. The bank reckons that remittances by expatriates, a prime source of hard currency, will grow by 18%, and that exports will do so by 6.2%. Despite the reported impact of changed world trade rules on textile exports, the maquiladora (re-export) industry is expected to increase its output by 10%.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC | Tourism still leads. Revenues from tourism last year reached US$3.4bn, or 5% more than in 2003. This keeps tourism comfortably in its position as the country's main source of hard currency. Tourism accounts for 24% of GDP. In 2004 the Dominican Republic received 3.5m tourists, or 29% of the Caribbean total. 

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC | Fuel price rises trigger protests. On 8 April the government of President Leonel Fernández again increased fuel prices, as it has been doing now for seven weeks running. This has triggered a wave of protests throughout the country, adding to those which were already being staged against the continuing electricity blackouts, of 10 hours or more a day. Unions have warned that they might call a general strike. The Dominican Republic is wholly dependent on imported oil, and the increases reflect price movements on the world market.