In Dominican Republic Entrepreneurship has crossed borders. By the end of 2022, 1.5 million micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) were registered, representing 99% of the business fabric, contributing 38.6% of the gross domestic product (GDP). However, not all of them are owned by nationals, but 7.1% correspond to foreigners residing here legally or illegally.
This is evidenced by the latest analysis on MSMEs of the National Survey of Multipurpose Households (Home) 2022, detailing that 6.1% of businesses are owned by Haitian citizens and 1% by other nationalities. The largest proportion is led by Dominicans with 93%.
Although Haitians represent approximately 10% of the local population, very few are formally employed. In fact, second overall, in the Dominican Republic only 45.4% of all employees are formal and contribute to the Social Security Treasury (TSS). This indicates that more than 2.5 million workers, most of whom provide services in MSMEs, are informal and do not have access to social security benefits.
According to the report on financing for MSMEs in Dominican banking, prepared by the Superintendency of Banks (SB), as of December 2022, the credit portfolio to MSMEs had a real growth of 15.1%, with a balance owed of RD$404,682 million and 517,311 credits, equivalent to 47.7% and 85.0% of the commercial loan portfolio for the private sector, respectively. Although this study does not specify the loans granted by nationality, it does specify by region, gender, size and economic activity.
In this context, it is observed that the dominican bank assigns more credit to large companies, which represent 57.7% of the total and represent 1% of the number of existing companies. While by sectors, 76% of the total balance owed to MSMEs is allocated to six sectors: commerce (RD$113,569 million), real estate activities (RD$38,121 million), construction (RD$38,121 million), manufacturing industry (RD$95,555 million), activities financial (RD$39,821 million) and lodging and food services (RD$73,349 million).
Chinese and Haitians are the “worst paid” workers in the Dominican Republic