Modern daily life in Dominican Republic
United Nations publish every year its Human Development Index, which specify which countries in the world have best living conditions for their citizens. Its based on general scores in fields like: education, health care, earnings, security etc. In said list - HDI- Dominican Republic has 102nd place, among around 200 countries in the world. What does it mean ? If you look at that list, you may see that DR's score is close to countries like Thailand, Morocco or Indonesia, but lower than for countries like Argentina, Malaysia (and of course lower than EU and North America), however - still much higher than Dominican Republic's neighbour - Haiti, which is placed as the last country (least developed) country in western hempishere among Two Americas.
Dominican Republic is a country with huge salary gap. Picture: Selling food on the street is the main source of income for some Dominicans. In the background - car worth XX,XXX dollars (and not exactly bought on credit)
Dominicans say - "life aint easy, when you have no money" at that rule is valid in entire world. However, in Dominican Republic [...read more, 60 % of content inside..]
Modern economy of Dominican Republic is based on few most important things: tourism, agriculture and farming, emigration to richer countries (like US or EU) and gray market - like corruption, drug trafficking... There is also another big foundation for dominican economy - 1000's of small businesses like guys selling fruits on the streets, internet- cafes owners, bars , moto taxis, taxis etc. etc. and all other professions that all developed countries have - like doctors, lawyers, shop clerks, truck drivers etc. etc.
Good product is always a half of a success. Picture: Guy selling delicious coco juice on some typical hot day in Santiago de los Caballeros. One cup of juice sells for around 30-40 pesos.
Tourism is a really important part of dominican economy and good source of foreign currencies like dollars and euros. The hotel owners (and not only of the BIG hotels, which in reality have foreign owners - from Spain, US, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, UK etc. etc.) , restaurants , taxi drivers, guides, the other people working in dozens of small businesses connected with tourism - are all REALLY HAPPY to have visiting tourists.
And there are even more benefits of tourism for Dominican Republic. [...read more, 70 % of content inside...]
The second most important part of dominican economy is farming and agriculture. During my crazy motorbike travel in this country, I noticed one interesting pattern in lands/areas that I visited. When I was [...read more, 80 % of content inside...]
Agriculture is probably the most important part of dominican economy. Picture: farmland with greenhouse in San Jose de Ocoa area.
Another important part of dominican economy is emigration - people who left the country once ago and now send money to their homeland. Milions of Dominican people emigrated to countries like USA, Canada, Spain, italy, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland or UK. And putting aside what kind of jobs they do exactly in their "new" countries - regardless if it is [...read more, 60 % of content inside...]
Another part of dominican economy is a gray zone, black market - based on drug trafficking and selling (coke from Colombia and some grass) and corruption. Dominican Republic is one of most important transport hubs in trafficking cocaine from Colombia and Peru to its final destinations - like EU or USA. Money made from that dirty deals are also dirty, but - they are still money. It is not rare that [...read more, 50 % of content inside...]
Fruit business - small shop with healthy food and...herbs for the mamajuana production (dont confuse it with cannabis, marihuana - thats the other thing). Nagua in Dominican Republic
And the last - but not least - part of dominican economy - are small and legal businesses. All services offered by workers for clients and customers - and this is exactly the part of economy that exists in each healthy and developed modern country. So here we have: 100s of 1000's shop clerks, sellers, drivers, guards, construction workers, lawyers, doctors, internet cafes and its workers, cafeterias and its workers, fruit sellers, bakeries etc. This part of dominican economy is most visible every day during life in Dominican Republic. And its one of the biggest.
All of these parts of dominican economy are connected to each other and they dont exist in void.