Like with anything there will be positives and negatives. However, I feel the overall balance will be in favor of the Dominican consumer and economy.
While Walmart is certainly bullish in treating it's suppliers, the dynamic in the States is much different than here in the DR. The typical American consumer has more mobility and cash on hand than most Dominicans, so when Walmart comes to town (in the US) many small business have to tighten their belts just to survive as they are in direct competition with Walmart.
However, in the DR it will be a somewhat different. First, many Dominicans don't have a lot of cash on hand to buy in bulk or pay for a taxi (try buying in bulk and then getting a carro publico) to go to the big store when they can go to the local colmado and get what they need for that same day. Most Dominican households are like this. Therefore, many colmados won't be in direct competition with Walmart as most of it's (colmados) consumers wouldn't have the means to shop at Walmart.
For the Dominican middle class from semi professionals to two income housleholds who actually have enough cash on hand and are willing to pay for a taxi or have their own transportation they will actually be the one's reaping the most benefit IF Walmart sticks to it's corporate strategy that it is THE store of the masses. Walmart will then be in competition with the store that fits in the category which are typically found in a few of the larger urban centers on the island.
I believe this will be very, very good for the Dominican economy. The reason I believe this is because the Dominican economy is much less affected by competition than others societies. This has to do for a lot of reasons such as the inability of most to get financing to open a large business to the fact that there are no laws in the country to prevent monopolies nor price fixing. In fact, price fixing is a fact of life here in the DR where business owners get together(and sometimes not) and arbitrarily maintain high prices. What ends up happening is that there are few, relatively speaking, individuals controlling the market as opposed to letting the normal market forces of supply and demand control.
Therefore, I feel that having a Walmart that sticks to it's coporate philosophy of maintaining lower prices will cause a lot, lot of Dominican businesses to really change their strategy from one of artificially maintaining high prices becasue they can(due to lack of real competition, etc.) to lower their prices to be able to stay afloat.
Another indicator of the abnormal market manipulation by the select few who can afford to have a medium/large business is to see the amount of wealth they generate. It is not uncommon for medium sized business owners to be driving around in Land Rovers/Mercedes with RD20M houses etc. Now they will have to quit charging so much just because they can which will allow the typical Domincian to have more buying power. Hopefully this attitude will be contagious and we can move to a more free market economy without so many unjust influences.
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