Only through producing high value added consumer goods, a poor country can transform itsself into a rich one within a few decades. Innovation is key and should be embraced!

Japan and Taiwan did it, China and the other BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) are doing it right now.

The Dominican Republic needs more engineering schools. In fact, engineering schools should be for free in order to attract more students. And government should have a fund to provide innovation loans to young entrepreneurs of high tech, high value added consumer goods. The more sophisticated the products are which are made in the Dominican Republic, the wealthier the nation will be.

How do you expect a country who's main exports are bananas, cocoa beans, textile etc., to have enough money to pay for all those expensive and high value added consumer goods, like cars, TVs, computers, etc. Just do the math. If your exports only consist of cheap stuff made by whole bunch of people (because of lack of adecuate automatisation or sophisticated machinery), and your imports of expensive stuff, you are always going to be poor as a nation.

The reason why Western countries continue to do well even with agricultural products is because their agriculture system is totally mechanised, so it is very efficient. Two people on one modern Western farm can do the same job more than let's say 30 people would do in a farm in a developing country. And besides, their agricultural system gets a lot of government subsidies as well. Agriculture is important especially now that commodity prices are up, but besides concentrating on promoting development of the agriculture sector, the DR should promote development of high tech industry as well.

easier said than done, Buenoha. your ideas are great, and your math makes sense, but the hypotheticals do not compute. the DR does not have a culture of entrepreneurship. contrary to common belief, an entrepreneur is not the same as a businessman. an entrepreneur is a visionary, someone who dreams up wild, innovative things, and sees them to fruition. Bill Gates is an entrepreneur. the guys who gave us Google, and youtube, starbucks, mcdonalds, ebay: those are entrepreneurs. guys who open up neighborhood coffee shops are businessmen. most of the english speaking caribbean islands have an NGO callede Venture Capital. a guy with a good idea can submit it to the offices of this body for perusal. if the idea makes sense, venture capital will request a pre-feasibility study. if the idea is really ground breaking, venture capital will pay for the study. if the numbers add up, financing will be made available. in the DR, the only people who have access to funds are the entrenched oligarchs, who are stale and tired, and who have never had a good idea in a century. they still close down business for 2 hours in the afternoon, in the year 2008. they do things the same way they did 100 years ago. because they use computers in their businesses, they tell you they have "modernised ". but the methodologies are as old as time. 20 employees doing jobs that could be done by two. i have seen department stores in which people entering the store are bumping into those paying at the register. so much potential going to waste. i beg to differ with those who believe that the average dominican is not ready for prime time. it is the leadership which is behind the curve.

Agreed, good post. I see no visionairies in DR, a lack of seeing the big picture, having long term planning. A tendency to have a rather provinical business culture/outlook like your siesta example.
I also wonder why none of the Caribbean islands have attracted all those call centers being outsourced to India? English is spoken all thruought the Caribbean. In DR's case I recall reading about some call centers being placed there.
DR overly relys on old outdated methodologies. Can someone tell me why in the agricultural sector are things still being done like in the 19th century? Why isn't the sugarcane industry mechanized and relying on cheap intensive manual labor?
Why is their a possiblity of a horrible death toll in any accident? It's like over here in the USA you got a good chance of getting into an accident and just getting no or minor injuries, in DR you might die.
If the leaders in DR don't know what to do or how to implement, they can get advice from other countries just like Liberia is getting advice from DR on how to build up their tourist industry.
Get some help from Taiwan, Japan, USA, Europe. Also LatinAmerican countries that have managed to do good in different areas, Costa Rica, Brazil, Colombia. The number one priority is education and it being made available to as much of the public.
I wonder if I will ever see Santo Domingo as one of the premier cities of LatinAmerica like Mexico City, Rio, Buenos Aires.

Dreads and aside; I would have to differ. First and foremost Bill gates is not a visionary. Sorry to mention this but he either copies technology or buys it. Perhaps he can be called a visionary for other reasons.

Now, I also differ on "prime time" issue. I think Dominicans believe they are ready, but in reality they are not ready for prime time. They are lacking far behind as individuals. This is attributed to the inherent nature of Dominicans. Dominicans aren't leaders by nature they are followers. Due to political social economic conditions Dominicans are risk adverse. Once a comfort level has been reached they fear venturing beyond their comfort zone. I see this in their every day activities and in their knowledge and responses to real world events.

I really don't see this changing, unless future generation of Dominicans decide to emigrate from developed countries.


Post stated:
I'm going to hunker down cause the barrage of incoming will be soon upon me.

sadly, USADR, the real big players, those who can propel the DR along in its ride to modernity, are scared of coming here. do not listen to people who sit up in New York and read press releases, then say we are the kings of the caribbean hill. speak to foreign businessmen, who will tell you that they will not do business here because of the legal ecosystem, which is too nebulous, indeterminate and antiquated to offer them any kind of protection in case of a dispute. want to know why there are so many call centers in the DR? i'll tell you why! because there are so many foreigners living here! who do you think is getting the majority of those jobs? dominicans get those jobs when there are no foreigners applying. a foreigner is content to live on 7 dollars per hour, sitting at a telephone, if he cannot get a better gig. 10,000 peso per week is not bad for someone who does not have exhorbitant tastes. but those jobs are hard to land. i have applied for at least 20 of them, and i have gotten maybe 2 responses, even though i bring a pretty powerful CV to the table. but i am a son of the caribbean, and not whom they want. i once overheard a canadian describing a job vacancy, and i asked him if it was still open for application. he looked me straight in the eye and said "we are only hiring canadians". so yes, foreigners might be bringing jobs here, but not for you and me. when they need a person to clean the toilets, you will be notified.

arcatype, ever been to Barbados?

DREADLOCKS, SAID
arcatype, ever been to Barbados?

Is Barbados even a country? i mean how big is it?, is the population significant?, Is Barbados being funded by the British? Is it still a colony? Enlighten me Dreadlocks?

ladronaso. there will be no "incoming " from me. i agree in theory with all you say. bill gates did copy others, but nobody copied the way he did. many others could have raised the bar the way he did, but his ideas were superior. ruthless, yes, but he took things to another level, because he was not complacent and " risk adverse ', as you characterise it. we are saying the same thing, but with different starting points. dominicans are complacent and conservative, because leadership has served to stifle what little creativity they have. so they do not strive to produce anything competitive for export, because the oligarchs have convinced them that if we need it, they will import it!!!

DREADLOCKS, SAID
arcatype, ever been to Barbados?

Let's see Barbados economic index - http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/country.cfm?id=Barbados Dreadlocks Barbados is a tiny island with a population close to 280,000 people how can you draw a comparison with a country like the Dominican Republic with 9 million people and close to 1.5 million illegal haitians. I dont think that you could use tiny Barbados as an example, but comparing it to the other tiny economies in the Lesser Antillles would be more correct LOL.