In order to contain the advance of the pandemic, during the rest of the month of May, capacity reductions and restrictions to the circulation of vehicles will be applied, measures that will be applied throughout the national territory.
Through a press conference, the Costa Rican Government announced that as of May 13, sanitary measures will be applied, which will be based on the modification of some existing ones.
In March 2021, the Monthly Index of Economic Activity reported a 6.9% increase over the level recorded in the same month of 2020.
The Guatemalan economy continues to show positive signs, as after facing a crisis during 2020 due to the covid-19 outbreak, economic activity has recovered rapidly in the last months of last year and in the first quarter of 2021.
According to the IMF, the local economy is well positioned to support the recovery and overcome the deterioration of social indicators, which worsened due to the pandemic caused by the Covid-19 outbreak.
Strong remittances, pandemic-resilient productive specialization, and unprecedented economic policy support limited economic contraction in 2020, while the outlook for 2021 benefits from additional U.S. fiscal stimulus, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported.
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).
In order to mitigate the effects of the pandemic, local authorities decided that from Monday, May 3 through Sunday, May 9, all commercial establishments operating in the cantons of the Central Region and which are not classified as essential, must close to the public.
These establishments will be able to operate under the non-face-to-face modality by means of home delivery or self-service. The rest of the country will not be affected by closures, informed the Presidency of Costa Rica.
Reducing costs and barriers to foreign trade in Central American economies is key for the region to overcome the economic recession caused by the outbreak of Covid-19.
A report prepared by the World Bank explains that boosting economic activity and employing a higher percentage of the labor force are objectives that can be achieved through reforms that strengthen the private sector and attract investment.
In order to reduce the effects of the pandemic that caused the outbreak of Covid-19, from April 27 to May 16, there will be restrictions on vehicle traffic from 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. the following day.
Given the speed of the increase in the number of infections and hospital occupancy, some of the most severe epidemiological data since the beginning of the pandemic, the health authorities made the decision to change the restriction schedule, according to an official statement.
Arguing that the measures applied by the government directly harm employees and owners of restaurants and bars, a group of businessmen in Guatemala filed a legal action in the Constitutional Court.
Restrictions to productive activity have already been applied for days, since with the purpose of promoting actions aimed at interrupting the epidemiological chain of the Covid-19 disease, on April 17 Ministerial Agreement 87-2021 was published in the Diario de Centroamerica, a regulatory framework that requires a 25% reduction in the capacity of shopping centers, shopping malls, convenience stores and restaurants.
As a result of the restrictions imposed by the Guatemalan Government, local businessmen estimate that sales in the commercial sector last weekend fell by up to 50% and the number of customers in restaurants and shopping centers decreased considerably.
In order to promote actions aimed at interrupting the epidemiological chain of the Covid-19 disease, Ministerial Agreement 87-2021 was published on April 17 in the Diario de Centroamerica, a regulatory framework that requires a 25% reduction in the capacity of shopping malls, commercial centers, convenience stores and restaurants.
After in January 2021 in the context of the crisis caused by the pandemic, the Monthly Index of Economic Activity at the national level reported a 6% decrease in year on year terms, in February a smaller drop was registered, amounting to 3.5%.
The drop recorded in February continues to reflect the negative effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the damage caused by the tropical storms of November 2020, affecting the evolution of most economic activities, mainly in "... Agriculture, Livestock, Forestry and Fishing; Manufacturing Industry; Transportation and Storage; Hotels and Restaurants; Commerce; and Private Construction; these contractions have been partially offset by the boost in the services of Mail and Telecommunications and Financial Intermediation", informed the Central Bank of Honduras (BCH).
As from April 19, the curfew nationwide will be from 12:00 midnight to 4:00 a.m. the following day, the opening of bars with outdoor terraces and the holding of sports activities with the public will be allowed.
As from next Monday, April 19, the public will be allowed to attend outdoor sports activities with a 25% capacity and without liquor sales, informed the Ministry of Health.
During February 2021, economic activity fell 4.7% in year-on-year terms, a drop that evidences that the economic crisis caused by the covid-19 outbreak continues to affect Costa Rica.
According to the Central Bank of Costa Rica (BCCR), as per the cycle trend series of the Monthly Index of Economic Activity (IMAE), the inter-annual variation of production reached its lowest point in June 2020, at which point it began a gradual recovery process.
During March 2021, the Panamanian Consumer Confidence Index increased 2% with respect to the level reported in January of this year, this slight increase is reported in the context of the economic reactivation process of local production.
According to the survey conducted by the Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture of Panama (CCIAP), in strategic alliance with The Marketing Group, expectations on the probability of saving money decreased 3 percentage points, presenting a result of 75 points, below the equilibrium point, for the measurement of March 2021, so it remains at levels of marked distrust.
For the mobile quarter from December 2020 to February 2021, the unemployment rate in the country decreased to 18.5%, a proportion that is slightly lower than the 19% reported for the period from November to January last year.
In this quarter, the unemployed population was 452 thousand people, an increase of 142 thousand people compared to the same mobile quarter of the previous year, informed the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC).
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.
español
3075