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Dominican Republic: Years
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CHICAGO, USA (AFP): Dominican Republic right-handed pitcher Octavio Dotel and Cuban outfielder Alexei Ramirez each signed multi-year deals with the Chicago White Sox, the Major League Baseball club announced Tuesday. Dotel, who played last year with Atlanta and Kansas City, accepted a two-year contract.
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The Dominican Republic has 50,000 hotel rooms and millions of tourists. The height of the tourist season is mid-December to mid-April, when the weather is colder and drier than at other times of the year. Hotel prices will be higher at this time of the year. May and June can be rainy and humidity starts rising. The official hurricane season is June to November, although it has been more of August-November in recent years. In between hurricanes, there can be some lovely weather, albeit interspersed with some rain.
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After a decade of little to no growth in the 1980s, the Dominican Republic's economy boomed in the 1990s, expanding at an average rate of 7.7% per year from 1996 to 2000. Tourism (the leading foreign exchange earner), telecommunications, and free-trade-zone manufacturing are the most important sectors, although agriculture is still a major part of the economy. The Dominican Republic owed much of its success to the adoption of sound macroeconomic policies in the early 1990s and greater opening to foreign investment. Growth turned negative in 2003 (-0.4%) due to the effects of government handling of major bank frauds and to lower U.S. demand for Dominican manufacturers. The Mejía administration negotiated an IMF standby agreement in August 2003 but was unable to comply with fiscal targets. The Fernández administration obtained required tax legislation and IMF board approval for the standby in January 2005.
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The Government of the Dominican Republic has been plagued by a myriad of problems over the past year. Beginning in mid-2003, internal and external debt became a major issue. The former administration's 100% guarantee of deposits in three collapsed banks created an obligation that nearly tripled the debt ratio, an increase of about $11 billion. The former administration sought a standby program from the IMF, but because it was repeatedly unable to meet its financial goals, IMF disbursements were limited to approximately $120 million between October 2003 and February 2004. Because of the lack of an IMF program, almost all other lending from international financial institutions was suspended throughout 2004. The electricity sector lurched from crisis to crisis - price controls, high theft of electricity, and low collections contributed to widespread and sporadic rolling blackouts.
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The island of Hispaniola, of which the Dominican Republic (DR) forms the eastern two-thirds and Haiti the remainder, was originally occupied by the Tainos, an Arawak speaking people. The Tainos welcomed Colombus in his first voyage in 1492, but subsequent colonisers were brutal, reducing the Taino population from about one million to a few thousand in 50 years. To ensure adequate labour for plantations, the Spanish brought African slaves to the island beginning in 1503.
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The Dominican Republic has a semitropical climate, tempered by the prevailing easterly winds. Temperatures of more than 23°C (more than 74°F) are registered in the lowlands throughout the year. During the summer months temperatures range between 27° and 35°C (80° and 95°F) in these regions. The highlands are considerably cooler.
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