Through June, the Dominican economy registered a year-on-year expansion of 6.4%, the highest of the year, and construction alone accounted for nearly 30% of that growth
SANTO DOMINGO – Data reveals that construction not only kept pace with the growth of the Dominican economy in the first half of 2026, but actually fueled it. While the country as a whole grew by 4.5%, the sector expanded by 6.7%, driven by a 22.6% year-on-year increase in credit, adding more than RD$34 billion compared to June 2025.
The data that revealed this reading came in the publication of the Monthly Indicator of Economic Activity (IMAE), from the Central Bank, which showed a year-on-year expansion of 6.4% up to June, the highest of the year, and construction alone accounted for about 30% of that growth.
The Central Bank itself described the accumulated total for the semester as more than double that recorded in the same period of 2025, but that general comparison falls short compared to what the sectoral breakdown shows: construction not only led, but did so by a margin that no other sector reached.
The Central Bank itself broke down the sector's performance by segments of the year: between January and May, construction accumulated a year-on-year expansion of 5.1%; in June, in isolation, that rate jumped to 14.9%, the highest of any month recorded so far in 2016.
The April-June quarter, taken as a whole, closed at 6.7% year-on-year, exactly the same rate as the accumulated rate for the full six months, which suggests that the jump in June did not distort the trend, but rather reinforced it.
What 2025 left behind
The IMAE monthly series itself, which accompanies the report, shows an irregular and weak 2025, with months such as October (0.2%), February (0.7%) or June of that year (1.1%) barely above economic stability.
That was the terrain from which the recovery began: a year marked by a restrictive monetary policy that sought to contain inflation and that, along the way, cooled both credit and the execution of construction projects.
2026 shows a different trajectory month after month: 3.5% in January, 3.9% in February, 5.1% in March, 3.8% in April, 4.7% in May, and 6.4% in June. No month in 2026 has fallen below the worst month of 2025, and the gap between the two years has been widening rather than closing.
Where does the credit come from?
The Central Bank attributed this financing to the execution of private investment projects and a greater dynamism in public investment, in line with the budget execution of the Government's capital expenditure item, which the Minister of Finance and Economy himself had recently highlighted.
The statement also adds a piece of data that is rarely quantified but confirms the extent of the rebound: a notable increase in sales of the main construction inputs, reflecting the productive links of the sector to the rest of the economy.
A rebound that is not alone
Although it was the sector with the greatest relative weight, construction was not the only standout sector in June, as mining grew 18.1% year-on-year, associated with higher volumes of gold and silver extraction in a favorable international market; financial services advanced 13.1%; and education and professional services grew 8.9% and 8.7%, respectively.
Even so, none of those sectors has the weight or the ripple effect that construction exerts on the input industry, employment and, ultimately, on the real estate market itself.
The Central Bank closed its report with a fundamental warning: the rebound occurred in an international environment marked by geopolitical tensions that have raised oil prices and transport tariffs, putting pressure on production costs on a global scale.
Despite this, the monetary institution maintained that the Dominican economy has solid fundamentals, a stable financial system and a resilient private sector, supported by the coordination between monetary and fiscal policy.
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