Haiti’s Economy to Grow 7.8 Percent, Lead Caribbean in 2012: IMF Report

April 25, 2012 |

Above: Jacmel (Photo: Capponi Group)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Haiti’s Gross Domestic Product is projected to grow by 7.8 percent in 2012, according to the recently-released World Economic Outlook from the International Monetary Fund.

Haiti’s projected growth comes after a reported 5.6 percent growth rate in 2011, according to the Fund.

The rate comes largely from reconstruction efforts following the devastating earthquake in the country in 2012.

That number represents the highest projected growth of any country in the Caribbean.

Suriname, with a projected growth of 4.9 percent, has the second-highest projected number.

The projection is in line with a United Nations report from December which pegged the country’s 2012 growth rate at 8 percent.

The IMF’s Regional Economic Outlook for the Western Hemisphere, released Wednesday, projects growth for the region at 3.75 percent this year, before returning to about 4 percent in 2013.

According to the fund, the Caribbean “finally turned the corner” in 2011 after a long recession, although high debt levels and tourism dependence continue to constrain the region’s economic outlook.

Grow from what? that 7% is misleading. Haitians progress is only possible when they're not running things! That growth is only charity and UN money. Now what we need to do is take our lands back. Bring back HiNCHAS into our union and deport all haitians! ALL OF THEM!

Dominican Republic bets on gold to boost economy

By BEN FOX and EZEQUIEL ABIU LOPEZ | Associated Press – 4 hrs ago



SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — One of the world's largest gold mining operations is about to open in the Dominican Republic, where the industry has a toxic legacy of pollution that stained rivers a searing red and failed to lift the fortunes of this largely poor country.

Abandoned 13 years ago by state-owned Rosario Dominicana, the Pueblo Viejo mine left behind an environmental mess and a cluster of depressed mountain towns.

Now, a joint venture by the world's two biggest gold companies, both of them Canadian, is launching a much larger operation at the site within weeks. Officials promise it will be radically different from the previous one, and will be managed to prevent environmental damage, in addition to underwriting the cleanup of past contamination and providing billions of dollars for the country, especially in the mining region in the forested mountains north of the capital.

But skeptics are uneasy about the cyanide used to process the ore and question whether the operators can guarantee their assurances to contain chemical runoff in a country prone to major flooding, especially during hurricanes.

"We are not against mining in the Dominican Republic necessarily, but the industry has been its own worst enemy here," said Luis Carvajal, a biologist at the University of Santo Domingo and a prominent critic. "Without a doubt, the impact of the mine will be significant."

Pueblo Viejo Dominicana Corp. has waged an extensive campaign to defend itself, acknowledging the past problems that mining has caused in the country but otherwise dismissing what it says are largely unfounded fears.

"People have been scared, people have actually had a bad experience and now it's up to us to prove we can actually do the contrary," said Manuel Bonilla, president of the joint venture, which is 60 percent owned by the Barrick Gold Corp. of Toronto and 40 percent by Goldcorp Inc. of Vancouver.
The joint venture has said the Barrick Pueblo Viejo project will begin processing gold in the second half of this year, and that it will take 12-18 months to reach full production of about 1 million ounces annually. It also plans to process silver, copper, nickel and other metals.

Several other companies are exploring for underground metals elsewhere in the Dominican Republic as well as in neighboring Haiti, where large-scale formal mining is likely years away. The Dominican Republic has another smaller gold and copper mine, and mines that produce nickel and bauxite.
Each with a population of about 10 million, the Dominican Republic and Haiti are vastly different. The Dominican Republic, occupying the eastern two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola, is wealthier and more stable. It has a free trade agreement with the U.S. and Central America and is a top tourism destination in the Caribbean.

Metals mining can generate environmental problems in even developed, stable countries because of the industry's reliance on hazardous materials, said Payal Sampat, international program director for Earthworks, a U.S.-based watchdog organization.

"Even in the United States, metals mining is a sliver of the gross economic output of the country and it's still the number one toxic polluting industry," Sampat said. "So that's food for thought for countries like the Dominican Republic and Haiti that are on the cusp of embracing large-scale mining without all the regulations and historical experience."

The Dominican Republic lacks strong environmental regulations, a major reason the state-owned mining company could cause such destruction and why there was no real effort to clean up the mess, said Virginia Rodriguez, a coordinator for SalvaTierra, a local nongovernmental organization whose name translates as "Save the Earth."

Rodriguez said Barrick's plans to use 24 tons per day of cyanide in the mountainous center of the Dominican Republic, source of some of the country's most important rivers, makes her nervous. "There is a very high risk especially with an island like ours with a very fragile ecosystem," she said.
Supporters of the project note say Pueblo Viejo will be a huge economic boon for the Dominican Republic. The nearly $4 billion direct foreign investment is by far the largest in the Caribbean nation's history. Barrick will be the Dominican Republic's largest exporter and add 2 percent to the nation's GDP.

The mine itself will only produce about 2,000 jobs but the company says about 11,000 workers were involved in the construction and there will be more than 10,000 jobs indirectly created by the project, company and government officials say.

"This is a major industrial achievement for the country," said Dominican Mining Director Octavio Lopez. "Imagine what this will do for our economy aside from the exploitation of the gold, with some 10,000 jobs, 83 percent of them for Dominicans."

If gold prices hold up, mining eventually will surpass tourism as the country's largest income earner, with royalties and other revenue making up about 5 percent of the government's budget.
The company will pay a 3.2 percent per ounce royalty on net sales after production begins, income taxes and a net profit tax of nearly 29 percent after it has recovered its investment plus 10 percent. The company projects it will contribute about $7 billion over the estimated 25-year life of the mine to the government, with 5 percent allocated for municipalities around the mine.

The company says that the environment around the mine has been the project's most immediate beneficiary. Barrick spent $4 million cleaning up discarded machinery, buildings constructed with asbestos and other debris left behind when Rosario shut down in 1999 after it reached a level of sulfide ore that it did not have the technology to profitably mine.

Much worse were the exposed mine pits and piles of discarded sulfide rock, which leached acid and heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium and mercury into the watershed. Barrick's investment is paying to clean up the site, $75 million so far, and the company says it has stopped the toxic runoff from the main site and the red tint in local rivers is fading. Bonilla estimates it will take about a decade for the environment around the mine to fully recover.

"Our target 10 years from now is to see wildlife in these streams again, to see fish and other species back into these rivers," he said.

The company says its "world class environmental management system," has planted thousands of trees to prevent erosion and will rely on an autoclave technology for ore processing that will prevent the release of acid and other chemicals.

"The next four or five years are going to be very important because people are going to see us in operation, see the results of our operations, look at the waters, test the waters ... and see that things are actually improving," Bonilla said.

2025??? It would be nice but do you mean developed downtowns only?

First stage development, pana. The fully developed stage will take mucho mas to accomplish. But it's not too unreasonable to believe that if we handle things correctly, we may have within say 30 years time a real transformation of the way of life in DR. One where all the basic things we take for granted in a developed country are standard also in DR: potable water for all, good sanitation, good schools, good transportation, decent housing, etc.

against my better instincts, i am going to enter this thread, so Atabey can enlighten me. the first question i have is this

what do you mean by first stage of development? what are the characteristics, and how are they measured? are they comparative? if so, are they temporal comparatives, or geographic, or are they a combination of both? are they based on cost benefit analysis, or a simplistic array of numbers? is sustainability an objective? what factors condition the trajectory? is it assumed to be linear, and arithmetic, or are the equations that are applied intended to interpolate a coefficient for uncertainties, downturns, and crises, both local, and external? the floor is yours.

what do you mean by first stage of development? what are the characteristics, and how are they measured?

Dready,

Take it to mean the opening act of a developed state. As I explained to my pana above, it will NOT MEAN that all persons in DR will have obtained first world status. By no means. There will still remain significant pockets and sectors of poverty to tackle. But these will be lower in numbers and relatively speaking, too.

As I said above, primary education might have reached REAL FULL DAY service for all children from K-12 grades. Transportation services far better and more available across the land. Potable water and sanitation improved from the previous ten year comparative basis.

Again, improvements will be noted in a generalized sense. But there will remain vast challenges yet to tackle before we can witness a true transformation with massive poverty reduction in the society. The economy will need to expand massively for this to happen.

One crucial step will be continue and accepted elite consensus on reforming traditional practices: a modern and first stage development depends on such a consensus. Absent that crucial ingredient, DR will remain a very high wealth concentrated environment. So getting more, say 20-25% of PIB, contribution in pro development is key to advancing up the stage of development. Will it be easy? Has it been easy in other societies? NO. And So it will be for the DR. But I think the DR's elite is far better positioned than that that governed back in the 1960s. They have nursed their wounds suffered under the Old Goat and have grown their own horns. Now it's time for them to rise to the challenge of modernity.

as i said, it was against my better instincts. you have not answered ONE question i asked,with any relevant remarks, but just a mumbo jumbo of non sequiturs and blather. i am out of here.