Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

—
Dominican Republic: The Economy
the economy, doubling its share of GDP to 4.6 percent. In the
first half of 1998, the industry grew by 20.8 percent.
The most impressive and technologically advanced component
of the nation's telecommunications network is its telephone
system. The Dominican Telephone Company (Compariia
Dominicana de Telefonos—Codetel), a wholly owned
subsidiary of the United States company GTE, operates
approximately 90 percent of the 250,000-unit national telephone
system under the regulatory authority of the General
Directorate for Telecommunications of the Secretariat of State
for Public Works and Communications. Some of the advanced
features of the system include direct domestic and international
dialing, toll-free access to the United States through
"800" numbers, incoming toll-free service or WATS, high-speed
data transmission capabilities, fiber-optic cables, digital switching,
and a full range of services usually available to consumers
in the United States. In 1987 the Dominican Republic became
the second Latin American country to boast cellular mobile
telephones; it was the only developing country in the hemisphere
to offer this service to the public on a national basis.
Codetel and other companies also offer telex, electronic mail,
telenet, and facsimile services to the public. A member of the
International Telecommunications Satellite Organization
(Intelsat) ,
the Dominican Republic possesses a satellite earth
station, a submarine cable to the United States Virgin Islands,
and microwave stations. In 1989 a fiber-optic cable to Puerto
Rico was completed to expedite sophisticated data transmission
to the United States.
Codetel invested about US$500 million in the first half of
the 1990s to upgrade its systems; by the late 1990s, it had more
than 3,000 international and 500,000 domestic lines in use not
only in Santo Domingo but across much of the country. Codetel
accounted for almost 95 percent of the market. Codetel also
signed an agreement in late 1997 with Northern Telecom of
Canada for further modernization of its systems. Its most
aggressive competition for the Dominican market by the close
of the 1990s was expected to come from a United States company,
Tricom, which is 40 percent owned by Motorola and
which has embarked on a five-year US$200-million expansion
plan.
Tourism
The Dominican tourist industry grew tremendously during
the 1970s and the 1980s and continued to do so in the 1990s
149