Dominican trade with U.S. outperforms Latin America

[Sandcobra]

Dominican trade with the United States outperformed the rest of Latin America during the first half of the year, according to a Latinvex analysis of data from the US Census Bureau. Dominican-US trade grew 1.5 percent to $5.7 billion. That compares with a 0.8 percent decline in total Latin America-US trade and a 5.0 percent decline in the CAFTA trade block that includes the Dominican Republic and Central America. The trade growth was due to an increase in imports from the United States, which helped offset a decline in Dominican exports. Dominican imports of US goods grew 5.1 percent to $3.6 billion during the first six months of the year. That was the second-highest growth rate in CAFTA. However, Dominican exports to the United States dropped 4.1 percent to $2.1 billion. As a result, the Dominican trade deficit with the United States grew 20.5 percent to $1.5 billion, according to the Latinvex analysis.---Dominicantoday