Dominican Republic - Economic sectors

Since the 1960s, agriculture's share of GDP has declined in the Dominican Republic, while the share contributed by industry and services has grown. The CIA World Factbook estimated that in 1999, agriculture contributed 11.3 percent to the country's GDP, while industry contributed 32.2 percent, and services, mostly tourism, contributed 56.5 percent. Governments have sought to encourage some areas of agriculture by cutting duties on imported products and offering cheap loans to farmers, but they have also been willing to sell off the

profitable parts of the state-owned sugar industry and abandon those that are unprofitable.

The economy remains extremely vulnerable to economic developments beyond its control. Competition among Caribbean countries for the North American tourism market, for instance, is extremely fierce, and tourism revenues can be adversely affected by natural disasters, bad publicity, or recession in the United States. Likewise, the Dominican Republic has to compete with Mexico and other developing countries as a supplier of low-cost apparel and electronic components for the North American market. Key sectors of the national economy are also dominated by foreign companies: Canadian in the case of ferronickel, German and Spanish in the case of tourism, and American in the case of offshore manufacturing.