☕ THE HEADLINE
While Trinidad watches its industrial base collapse, the Dominican Republic just hit 200,134 Free Trade Zone jobs—a 67% surge in five years. One country is winning nearshoring. The other can't keep the lights on.
🔥 THE "AH-HA" MOMENT
DR didn't just offer tax breaks. They built an ecosystem.
In October 2025, DR's FTZ sector employed more people than ever—54% women, earning wages that jumped 66% since 2020. These aren't sweatshops; they're medical device plants for BD, Philips, and Cardinal Health. The sector exported $7.94 billion in 2025, led by medical devices, electronics, and logistics services.
Meanwhile, Trinidad's Point Lisas? Zero FTZ jobs. Nutrien closed. Train 1 decommissioned. The "energy industrial powerhouse" is now a graveyard with echoes.
📊 THE DATA THAT HITS
The Nearshoring Winner: DR's 200K FTZ Jobs vs. Trinidad's Zero
DR's FTZ Transformation: 67% Job Growth + 44% Export Growth in 5 Years
The comparison is brutal:
DR: 200K+ jobs, $7.94B exports, 97 industrial parks, 861 companies
Trinidad: Industrial capacity down 50% since 2015, forex reserves collapsing, manufacturers fleeing
Jamaica's betting big too: The Caymanas SEZ broke ground in July 2025—a 650-acre logistics hub with $650M investment and 4,000 projected jobs. But here's the catch: they're building warehouses for a market that doesn't trade with itself (more on that next month).
🧩 THE 9-LAYER DECODE
Layer 5 (Private Sector Climate): DR created "Triple Helix" coordination—government + industry + universities designing curriculum before factories opened. Result: 24,494 training programs via INFOTEP in 5 years.
Layer 6 (Trade & Integration): DR's local purchases from FTZs grew 87%(RD$83B → RD$155B). They didn't just import jobs; they built supply chains.
Layer 9 (Human Impact): Women hold 106,000+ FTZ jobs. When indirect effects are counted, 600,000 Dominicans depend on this sector.
Trinidad's gap? All three layers broken. No cluster coordination. No supply chain depth. No workforce strategy.
💡 THE TAKEAWAY
DR's model works because it's specialized (medical devices = 31% of FTZ exports), coordinated (govt-industry-academia partnership), and cost-competitive (16.3% advantage over China on total landed costs).
Trinidad had better energy infrastructure. But "infrastructure" without "ecosystem" = empty buildings.
The lesson for the region: Guyana, with its oil windfall, can either repeat Trinidad's mistake (build generic infrastructure, hope for the best) or copy DR's playbook (specialize, coordinate, integrate). The choice determines whether the oil boom builds a diversified economy or just nicer roads to nowhere.
Next Briefing (Feb 15): Why Jamaica invests $1.1B in logistics while CARICOM ships 86% of goods to Miami.