Although expectations for the end of 2021 are good for the Guatemalan economy, there is uncertainty regarding what will happen in the second part of the year, as the vaccination process is progressing slowly.
According to World Bank forecasts published in June 2021, it is expected that at the end of the year, Guatemala's Gross Domestic Product will grow 3.6% year-on-year.
For the international organization, during 2020, Guatemala's economy showed resilience, since in the context of the crisis caused by the Covid-19 outbreak, the GDP contracted only 1.5%.
According to the International Monetary Fund, in a context of favorable specialization of production and exports, resilience of remittances, and unprecedented support from monetary and fiscal policies, the drop in Guatemalan production was minimal compared to that reported in other Central American countries.
During March 2021, the Monthly Index of Economic Activity reported a year-on-year variation of 6.5%, a rise that is largely explained by the dynamism of mining and quarrying, manufacturing industry and construction.
In primary activities, growth was registered in mining and quarrying, livestock, agriculture, fishing and aquaculture, and a decrease in forestry and timber extraction, informed the Central Bank of Nicaragua (BCN).
During March 2021, the Monthly Index of Economic Activity reported a variation of 13% when compared to the levels reported in the same month of 2020, a period that was marked by the closure of the economy due to the pandemic.
The economic activities that most contributed to the positive result were: Manufacturing Industry and Commerce, and to a lesser extent, Mail and Telecommunications, Financial Intermediation and Other Services -related to health and net taxes-. These contributions were partially offset by the negative variations in agricultural activities, Transportation and Storage, and Hotels and Restaurants, highlights the report of the Central Bank of Honduras (BCH).
After in January 2021 the Monthly Index of Economic Activity in the country registered an year on year increase of 0.7%, in February a lower growth was registered, which amounted to 0.2%.
The activities with the highest growth were: mining and quarrying, 24.5%, commerce, 6.2%, fishing and aquaculture, 5.6%, construction, 2.4%, and manufacturing industry, 2.3%, among others, informed the Central Bank of Nicaragua (BCN).
The World Bank predicts that by the end of this year Panama and the Dominican Republic will be the economies of the region that will grow the most, and the countries that will report the lowest increases in their production will be Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
After the region's economies were considerably affected in 2020 by the sanitary crisis generated by the Covid-19 outbreak, the outlook of international organizations for 2021 is encouraging.
In January of this year, the Monthly Index of Economic Activity reported a 15% year-on-year drop, which is similar to the behavior recorded from March to December 2020, a period in which the pandemic severely affected productive activities.
This index contracted considerably, due to the effects of the Covid-19 health emergency. Among the economic sectors that were affected were: Hotels and restaurants, other community, social and personal service activities, construction, commerce, financial intermediation, manufacturing industries, electricity and water, real estate, business and rental activities, and transportation, storage and communications, among others, according to the Comptroller General's Office of the Republic.
High social charges, excessive regulations for businesses and the high price of labor are factors that prevent Costa Rica's economy from reaching its growth potential.
In Costa Rica, establishing a personally owned company without employees is up to three times more expensive than what it can cost in a country that belongs to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Twelve months after Central America began a health and economic crisis triggered by the covid-19 outbreak, Guatemala was the fastest recovering economy and Panamanian economic activity is the slowest to return to pre-pandemic levels.
In March 2020, the first cases of covid-19 began to be detected in the countries of the region. The highly contagious disease, which at that time had already claimed the lives of thousands of people around the world, forced Central American governments to establish mobility restrictions.
During January of this year, the Monthly Index of Economic Activity reported a 3.2% increase compared to the level reported in the same month of 2020.
The Guatemalan economy continues to show positive signs, since after facing a crisis during 2020 due to the covid-19 outbreak, economic activity has recovered quickly in recent months.
As a result of the pandemic in May 2020, the IMAE hit bottom by falling 22% year-on-year, but from June onwards, smaller falls began to be reported and in October the decline was barely 1%; however, in November the country fell back by 12%.
National production, measured through the original series of the Monthly Index of Economic Activity (IMAE), reflected a 12% year-on-year decrease in November 2020, determined by the negative impact of the pandemic, to which was added the losses in production due to the flooding caused in the national territory in the first half of November by the occurrence of tropical storms Eta and Iota.
The agile execution of economic stimulus programs, the considerable increase in public debt and the need to accelerate the process of economic reactivation are the lights, shadows and challenges identified a year after Alejandro Giammattei took office as president of Guatemala.
The World Bank has improved economic growth projections for all Central American economies for 2021, with Honduras, El Salvador and Panama having the most promising forecasts.
In June 2020, when the health and economic effects of the pandemic that caused the covid-19 outbreak were beginning to be reported, the World Bank predicted that in 2021 Nicaragua's Gross Domestic Product would decrease by -1.6%, but in a January 2021 publication it projected that the drop would be -0.9%.
In the context of the pandemic, the Costa Rican economy does not show clear signs of recovery, since during November 2020 the Monthly Index of Economic Activity reported an annual fall of 6.2%, a decline that is similar to that reported in October when it was 6.3%.
In November, the contraction persisted, in year-on-year terms, in most economic activities.
Strengthening the confidence of economic agents through a solution to the problem of public finances and moving forward with the process of vaccinating the population are key factors for the Costa Rican economy to recover quickly in the new year.
The spread of covid-19 and the restrictions imposed at the local and global levels severely affected most of Costa Rica's productive sectors, to the extent that the unemployment rate climbed to historical levels, several businesses were closed and economic activity fell sharply.
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