INEC data show that GDP showed in the second quarter of 2024 an increase of 2.5 per cent over the same period in the previous year.
Panama’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 2.2 percent from January to June 2024, pushed by the activities of the domestic economy, including construction and power generation, the Comptroller General’s Office reported Monday.
This performance of the Panamanian economy, with a GDP of $38,645.7 million, shows an increase of $814.3 million compared to the same period of 2023, notes a report by the Comptroller’s Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC).
INEC data show that GDP showed in the second quarter of 2024 an increase of 2.5 per cent over the same period in the previous year.
INEC states that this indicator reached an amount of $18,247,8 million, with an increase of 444 million compared to the same quarter of 2023, driven by internal economic activities such as construction (6.3 per cent), agriculture (3.1 per cent), wholesale and smaller trade (4.6 per cent), transport, storage and mail (2.9 per cent).
These three categories, in their order, showed from January to June a cumulative increase of 6.3%; 3.4 % ; and the last a cumulative variation of 1.9 %.
In the second quarter the segment of hotels and restaurants had an increase of 10.3 per cent in its Value Added, while from January to June the increase shown by this sector was 11.8 per cent.
In this period other activities such as art, entertainment and creativity grew by 7.4% as a whole, while from January to June they did so by 6.6 per cent, while financial and insurance companies grew by 8.5 per cent with a variation of 8.1 per cent at the end of the first semester.
Among the activities that showed a decrease in the second quarter is the exploitation of mines and quarries, with a decrease of 51.2 per cent, while from January to June this sector as a whole reached a decrease of 49.2 per cent.
Manufacturing also declined 3.2 percent in the second quarter, reflecting a 3.0 percent decrease in value added from January to June.
Last March, risk qualifier Moody’s estimated that GDP “will probably grow by 2.5 percent in 2024,” which translates into a “strong slowdown” compared to the 7.3 per cent expansion of the indicator in 2023.
The qualifier indicated that the closure of the Cobre Panama mine will affect economic activity in 2024 and weaken the confidence of companies and consumers.
The Copper Panama site, operated by the Canadian First Quantum Minerals and which reached 2 per cent of the world’s production of that mineral, has been paralyzed since the end of 2023 following a ruling of the Panamanian Supreme Court that declared the contract for the concession of the mine unconstitutional, whose activity accounted for almost 5 percent of Panama’s GDP, a country that can face multimillion-dollar international arbitrations for this decision.
The new government thatbv fgm ge in social security and solve the deficit the program of Invalidity, Ageing and Death (IVM) that supports pensions.