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Western Union brings the remittances through the company Vimenca.
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SANTO DOMINGO.- In 2007 money remittances to the Domincan Republic reached US$2.980 million, a record in the 10 years since the figures have been registered.

With a population of some 9 million and with 14 percent living abroad- around 1.5 million according to an Immigration Department estimate- to establish a remittances business in Dominican Republic should be a true "hit," though in the last few years "this work is in frank decay," said Dominican Currency Remittance Companies Association  (Aderedi) president Freddy Ortiz.

However, this type of business has contributed to reduce poverty in the country, since rural areas receive nearly 40 percent, another 40 percent in the cities, while of the total, 60 percent go to lower class families.

In the last few years Dominican Repubilc has become fourth country in receiving most remittances in Latin America and the Caribbean, after Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, according to the Inter-American Development Bank (I.D.B.).

The newspaper El Caribe says remittances are the "economic and emotional bond"  between a Dominican abroad and their family here, and only tourism and the free zones generate more income.

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COMMENTS
6 comment(s)
Written by: baldoria23, 9 Jan 2008 10:28 AM
From: United States, Washington, D.C.
Is this a good or a bad thing? a little of both. It is unfortunate that we have to export people to other countries in order to keep our society afloat. What happen to the almost 10% growth the PLD brags about?

Remittances go to fill a void left by the lack of public services and lack of economic opportunities. Without even mentioning the negative effect that migration has on families and communities, remittances should not be seen as an automatic positive trait. We need to analyze why we are in such need for remittances.
Written by: ny4life, 9 Jan 2008 11:11 AM
From: United States, New York, NY
Basically, it's sad to count heavily on these remittances to help the citizens in DR. The good thing is that ex-pats stay true to DR and there family from all over there world by sending these remittances.

DR4Life

Written by: shannahk, 9 Jan 2008 1:10 PM
From: United States
Thank you for this important story. There are two levels of exploitation happening here - first, the way the global economy forces so many people to leave their home and family to survive, and on top of that, the way the big players in the remittance industry, led by Western Union, exploit the sacrifice that migrant workers make by ripping off anywhere from 8-20% of the remittances in the form of high fees and outrageous exchange rates.

Think about what those dollars could do if local communities from Washington Heights to Dajabon, South Providence to Bonao, could reclaim those millions to meet people's needs. Maybe then, migration could be a true choice, not a necessity. For more on this issue and the Western Union boycott, see www.transnationalaction.org.
Written by: baldoria23, 9 Jan 2008 1:27 PM
From: United States, Washington, D.C.
shannahk,

You sound like Jess's friend. Send me an email, and we can talk about writting an article about the campaign.

Cheers,
Written by: DaniDr, 9 Jan 2008 5:44 PM
From: Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo
This news is both good and bad. Good because without remittances the country would run out of dollars quite fast. It also means that a lot of money was needed in the DR for the families to be able to progress and survive, which is bad.
Written by: MrThelmoAlmeydaRancier, 9 Jan 2008 11:58 PM
From: United States, NJ
If you look at it from the net income of DR. I would say Remittances is #1 over tourism and Free zone. Tourism is owned by EU and the free zone is owned by the USA,Canada. Very little stays in the hands of DR citizens. Most of the taxable money that comes from it as well as Dominicans going back and forth who in turn are exessible taxed so their corrupted gvt. could sustain itself.
The tourist resorts pay practical no taxes since the gvt.has sold themselves out to them with a tax free for an indefinite time.Only tourist using such places pay their taxes,but the bulk earned is taken back to EU,leaving low wages to the DR citizens which is not going to last long As soon as the resorts owners start importing more educated employees from the lower antilles, who know the business and are multi-linguist (the show is over) unless which i doubt they were forced by law to employ DR citizens . A good example is Mexico .
Free Zone is no guarantee as they are always looking for cheap labor.
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