Economic analysts and entrepreneurs are contradicting the results released by the INE on this economic indicator. World Bank argues that Honduras remains one of the poorest and most unequal countries
Although there are 2.8 million people with employment problems and the cost of the food basket exceeds 12,000 lempires per month, poverty could not have decreased in Honduras as disclosed by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
This is how economic specialists and entrepreneurs agreed, who said that the results related to this indicator are not consistent with the national reality.
When a government wants to present a better face, they say poverty has been reduced, even if reality is saying otherwise, said economist Martín Barahona.
He argued that a figure is not enough, in reality what needs to be sought is for poverty to be combated with policies of greater public investment.
According to the INE, the poverty indicator in 2021 was 73.6%, while in 2023 it stands at 64.1%, a reduction of 9.5% in two years. 12.2% was the decline of extreme poverty in the Honduran territory from 53.7% to 41.5%.
However, the World Bank (WB) recently stressed that Honduras remains one of the poorest and most unequal countries in the region.
Following the covid-19 pandemic and the Eta and Iota climate phenomena, the proportion of the population living in poverty reached 57.7%, an increase from 49.5% in 2019, he adds.
Other opinions
According to what we see happening in the country, I do not see that poverty has reduced and I think it is increasing because every year there are 120,000 new young people who enter the productive matrix and there is no employment for them,” said the director of the Honduran Association of Maquiladores (AHM), Jesús Canahuati.
For his part, the president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industries of Cortez (CCIC), Eduardo Facussé, considered that the only possible economic theory to explain that poverty fell from 74% to 64% between 2021-2023, according to the INE, assuming that it is not data makeup, it is because of the thousands of compatriots who have migrated outside the country in that period.
This article has been translated from the original which first appeared in El Heraldo