With the recent signing of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States, minister of Industry and Commerce, Francisco Javier Garcia predicts that foreign investment will increase to a rate not seen in the last 50 years. He said that a number of large foreign companies were only waiting for the Dominican Republic to enter into Free Trade before investing and that these new investments will not only improve the economy but provide thousands of new jobs.

The minister expects the investments to begin in the next few weeks stating that they "will develop complete areas of our country seeking to use the United States as the supply center, but basically as local investments and productions."

He also expects "pleasant surprises" in terms of large investments benefitting areas throughout the country and not limited to the Dominican capital and is optimistically predicting that we will see the drop in prices of a large number of products in the near future.