LINKING THE COUNTRY THROUGH NEW TECHNOLOGIES IS KEY TO GROWTH
As new elections approach, President Hipólito Mejía is finishing a successful first term in office. In the economy, the telecommunications boom showcases Dominicans’ position at the vanguard of technology

In recent years, telecommunications have led the service sector to overtake agriculture as the economy’s largest employer

On the eastern two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola, interspersed with rugged mountains and fertile valleys, lies the Dominican Republic. Slightly twice the size of New Hampshire, the country has the Caribbean’s largest economy and is second largest in terms of population and landmass. President Hipólito Mejía, who entered office in 2000, assured Dominicans and would-be investors that maintenance of macroeconomic stability would be a priority for his administration, and the government's actions since then, including new taxes and controls on spending to help reverse a severe fiscal deficit, have borne this out.

Another priority for the President was the modernization of government institutions. As a result, an impressive judicial reform system has been instituted and the country is also beginning the long process of modernizing its courts and raising the standards of integrity in the system. New judges have been appointed throughout the court system and a modern training program for judges and court administrators has been implemented.

HIPÓLITO MEJÍA President of the Dominican Republic

The Dominican economy has had one of the fastest growth rates in the Western hemisphere throughout the 1990s, registering over 7% year on year. Although this has balanced out somewhat, growth for 2002 still reached 4.2%. The country has traditionally been viewed as primarily an exporter of sugar, coffee, and tobacco, but in recent years the service sector has overtaken agriculture as the economy's largest employer, due to growth in tourism, energy, telecommunications and Free Trade Zones.

The Mejía Administration has worked hard to attract foreign investment, with the President himself leading several important trade and investment missions to the U.S., Latin America and Asia. The development of regional trade agreements has also been a boost to the economy. Within the past two years, the Dominican Republic has reached agreement on trade pacts with CARICOM and with five Central American countries. The Dominican Republic also has a longstanding and close relationship with the United States, its principal trading partner and largest market. The U.S. has been an outspoken supporter of the country's democratic and economic development and also of President Mejía’s efforts to open the economy to more trade, increase foreign private investment, privatize state-owned firms, and modernize the tax system.

For many years, the telecommunications market has been a leading growth sector and a key element in the Dominican economy, a trend that is expected to continue as competition increases, new licenses are issued, and current players increase their investment. The country has one of the most advanced telecommunications networks in Latin America. Services offered by the four main telephone companies (Codetel, Tricom, Centennial, and France Telecom) include direct distance dialing, international direct distance dialing, electronic mail, cellular mobile phones, facsimile, telenet and national paging services. For a population of 8.5 million, the Dominican Republic has approximately 300,000 pagers and 225,000 cellular phones in operation, as well as 15 landlines per 100 inhabitants.

ORLANDO JORGE MERAS President of Indotel

The sector has received renewed impetus with several new government initiatives, and is set to receive a US$700 million investment this year. The state entity in charge of regulating and supervising the sector is Indotel. President Orlando Jorge Mera says that part of the sector’s success is due to the freedom that investors enjoy to use the technology of their choice. He comments, “In telecommunications, the Dominican Republic is a little like Switzerland – neutral. This means that a company can come here and implement the technology that best suits them. A priority for the government is that there is quality of service and that the users pay reasonable and justified prices.”

The Dominican government considers telephone service to be a right that must extend to the entire population, and medium-term plans are to integrate new technologies into the daily life of Dominicans. According to Mr. Mera, a short-term initiative has been to connect the 16 poorest provinces in the country to the telephone through subsidized private management, which is expected to turn profits within five years. “We are trying to establish policies so that information technologies become part of daily life here, ultimately enabling Dominicans to use them for their own development.”