Language

Official language
Spanish (Dominican spanish) 98%

Actual languages
Haitian Creole 2%, Samana English 1,5%, Italian 0.1%, Chinese 0.1%

T-index
0.12%

T-Index ranks countries according to their potential for online sales.

Demography

Capital: Santo Domingo
Currency: Dominican Peso
Population: 10,9 m
Population density: 227/km2

Economy

GDP: 94.24 billion USD (2020)
GDP per capita: 8,603.8 USD ‎(2020) ‎
Exports: $11 billion (2020)

Statistics

Internet users: 79.8% penetration, 8.78 million 
Unemployment rate: 6.1% (2020)
Urbanisation:  81.83% (2019)
Literacy: 93.78% (2018)

Conventions

Numbering system
Arabic numbering system, point as decimal separator and comma as separator of thousands

Date format: yyyy-mm-dd / mm-dd-yyyy
Time: 24h time system (am/pm)
Country code: 001-809, 001-829, 001-849

Economy

Imports
$17.6 billion (2020).  Cars ($21.7B), Vehicle Parts ($14.6B), Delivery Trucks ($11.6B), Broadcasting Equipment ($9.74B), and Gold ($8.98B), importing mostly from United States ($218B), China ($49.5B), Mexico ($16.1B), Germany ($10.9B), and Japan ($8.14B).

Financial inclusion factors (over 15 years of  age)
• 55% have an account with a financial institution
• 16% have a credit card
• 3.9% have a mobile money account
• 13% make online purchases

Ease of doing business
Very easy to conduct business (rated 60 out of 100). 15th out of 32 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, 115th worldwide out of 190 countries (2020, World Bank)

Exports
$11 billion (2020).  Gold ($1.77B), Instruments and appliances used in medical, surgical, dental or veterinary sciences ($1.3B), Cigars, cheroots, cigarillos and cigarettes; of tobacco or of tobacco substitutes ($838M), Electrical apparatus for switching ($811M), Bananas, including plantains; fresh or dried ($348M), exporting mostly to United States ($5.35B), Switzerland ($1.22B), Haiti ($751M), Canada ($477M), and Netherlands ($420M).

Main local online stores
amazon.com, ebay.com and corotos.com.do, other top retail sites include mercadolibre.com.do.

Economic freedom
‘Mostly free’ (63 out of 100) 16th amongst 32 Caribbean and Latin American countries 8th worldwide out of 186 countries (2019, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal)

Global Innovation Index

Ranked 13th out of 18 Latin American and Caribbean countries, 93rd out of 132 worldwide.

The Global Innovation Index captures the innovation
ecosystem performance of 132 economies and tracks the most recent global innovation trends.

Media

Media language
French, English, Spanish

Information channels
Media ownership is concentrated in a few influential hands. There are scores of terrestrial TV channels and hundreds of radio networks, most of them commercial. Journalists reporting on the drugs trade and corruption are exposed to possible threats and reprisals, says Reporters Without Borders.

The press

El Caribe – daily
Hoy – daily
Listin Diario – daily
El Nacional – evening and Sunday
Diario Libre – daily

Television

Corporacion Estatal de Radio y Television (CERTV) (Canal 4) – government-owned
Color Vision (Canal 9)
Telemicro (Canal 5)
Telesistema (Canal 11)
Teleantillas (Canal 2)
Antena Latina (Canal 7)– state-owned
Cadena de Noticias (CDN) – news-based

Radio

Cadena de Noticias (CDN) Radio – news station
Corporacion Estatal de Radio y Television (CERTV) – government-owned
Rumba FM – one of Santo Domingo’s many merengue, salsa stations

News agency

Dominican Today – online news in English
DR1 – online news in English

Internet Data

Internet users
79.8% penetration, 8.78 million 

Share of web traffic by device
50.69% mobile phones, 45.45% computers (laptops and desktops), 3.81% tablet devices, others 0.o5%

Average speed of mobile Internet connection
18.11  Mbps

Average speed of fixed Internet connection
15.87 Mbps

Mobile connection as a percentage of total population: 82.6%

Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G): 86.8%

Most popular web search engines
Google (94.53%), Bing (4.41%), Yahoo (0.7%),   DuckduckGo (0.15%), Ecosia (0.09%), Petal Search (0.05%)

Most used social media
Facebook (86.26%), Instagram (4.79%), Pinterest (4.41%), YouTube (2.86%) Twitter (1.43%), Tumbrl (0.89 %)

Social statistics

Life expectancy
74 years (2020)

Heathcare expenditure
5.93 of GDP (2019)

Religion
Religion is heavily practised in the Dominican Republic. People are very religious, even those who do not attend church. Most families go to mass on Sunday or at least once a week. Not baptizing children, living together without being married, or getting married outside of the church are frowned upon. People from Catholic families get married in the Church. There are different religions, but Catholicism is still the most prevalent. 

Class
Social class is very important. Members of the dominant classes are sure of a good future. The higher your class, the more doors are open to you. Society is made up of a number of social classes: the ruling class, political class, professionals who work for large companies, working class, lower class and the very poor. There are millionaires in the ruling class and the nouveaux riche make up the political class. Employees of large companies as well as professionals (engineers, doctors, lawyers, professors, etc.) have a high status in society due to their higher income level. People’s diet, going to private school, using private hospitals and belonging to social clubs all reflect social differences. In fact, everything is related to class.

Average age of the population
28 yrs (2020) 

Gender
Dominican society is very chauvinistic. Nevertheless, clause 8 of the country’s Constitution discusses sexual equality and clearly states that, under the law, all people are equal, regardless of their sex, race or social status. Women are very much involved in the community and in politics. Even if there is still a long road ahead, women are carving out their place in society and more and more salaries are becoming equal. The majority of university students are women and as a result, play an important part in society, even if they are not sufficiently well represented in politics. Still, the country’s vice-president is a woman and 90% of the provincial governors are women. There are also a lot of women who have high-level management positions.