The Dominican Republic is located in the Caribbean, occupying the eastern two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola, shared with Haiti. After Cuba, the Dominican Republic is the second-largest country in the Caribbean and enjoys a competitive advantage by virtue of its enviable geographic location, allowing direct access with relative ease to the North, South, and Central American markets. The strategic location also allows the connection between those markets and the European continent for the commercialization of goods and services.

The Dominican Republic has a large geographical diversity: extensive white sandy beaches, fertile valleys with beautiful vegetation, desert areas with dune formations and salt extractions, impressive mountain chains, areas with temperatures that may reach zero degrees Celsius. With a population of approximately 11 million people, the Dominican population is the result of an intense mixture of races, in which three main components participated: Indians, Europeans and Africans. This process has made the Dominican a synthesis of the best of several different worlds. Spanish is the country’s official language, even though professionals and people linked to high-standard general business and tourist trade generally speak English and its currency is the Dominican Peso (DOP).

The Dominican Republic’s government is a representative democracy, and its powers are divided into three independent branches: executive, legislative and judicial, while its civil law legal system is based on the French Napoleonic Codes.

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