GDP: Panama Best, Mexico Worst
{mosgooglecenter}
Panama and Peru are the stars of economic growth in Latin America, while Mexico, Ecuador, El Salvador an Venezuela are the top losers.
Panama will continue to have Latin America's highest economic growth, while Mexico will have the lowest, according to a Latin Business Chronicle analysis of new data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
All in all, Latin America is expected to increase its GDP this year by 4.4 percent, the fund said in its latest World Economic Outlook released last week. That's a slight revision upwards from the 4.3 percent GDP growth the IMF had forecast earlier. It's also better than the IMF's forecast for global growth (3.7 percent) and economic growth in the United States (0.5 percent), the European Union (1.8 percent) and newly industrialized Asian economies (3.9 percent). However, Latin America will lag areas like developing Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Commonwealth of Independent States when it comes to GDP growth this year.
Next year, Latin America's economy should grow by 3.6 percent. That will be higher than the forecasted growth in the United States and the European Union, but will lag all other areas and be slightly less than the expected global average of 3.8 percent.
Mexico, Latin America's second-largest economy, will likely expand its GDP by 2.0 percent this year and another 2.3 percent next year. That will be the slowest growth in Latin America in 2008 and 2009, our analysis shows. Mexico had the third-lowest growth last year - 3.3 percent. The 2008 growth will also be the lowest since 2003.
Brazil, Latin America's largest economy, will post GDP growth of 4.8 percent this year and 3.7 percent next year, the IMF predicts. That compares to 5.4 percent last year, which was the country’s best since 2004.
Argentina, Latin America's third-largest economy, will grow by 7.0 percent this year. That will be the second-best result in the region, along with Peru. Next year, Argentina's GDP should expand by 4.5 percent. Last year the country's economy grew by 8.7 percent.
Panama will see GDP growth of 7.7 percent this year and 7.2 percent next year. That's the highest rate in Latin America and follows Panama's growth of 11.2 percent last year, which also was the best in the region. In fact, it was also the best result in Panama's recent history, according to IMF data for the past 27 years.
Another star is Peru, which will see growth of 7.0 percent this year and 6.0 percent next year. Both are the second-best in Latin America. Last year, Peru's GDP grew by 9.0 percent, which also was the second-highest in the region and its best result in 13 years.
Among the leading losers are countries like Ecuador, El Salvador and Venezuela. Ecuador, which had the worst result last year (1.9 percent), will post the second-lowest growth this year (2.9 percent). However, it will fare better in 2009, with 4.1 percent GP growth, the IMF predicts.
El Salvador will post the second-lowest growth next year (3.4 percent). That follows an estimate 3.0 percent GDP expansion this year (Latin America's third-lowest growth) and 4.7 percent last year.
Venezuela, Latin America's fourth-largest economy, is expected to see a marked slowdown from recent years to next year. While the South American country's economy will be the fifth-best this year, it will be the third-worst next year. Venezuelan GDP will grow by a mere 3.5 percent in 2009, the IMF says. That follows an estimated 5.8 percent growth in 2008 and a more impressive 8.4 percent expansion last year.
