Economic growth for Latin American and the Caribbean region projected at 2.7%

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has ranked Venezuela as having the second best growth projection in the region.

Venezuela came second only to Guyana in the latest economic projection report released by the ECLAC, the UN’s regional agency in Latin America. The projection of economic growth in Venezuela had doubled to 10 per cent, up from five per cent since April.

Last week Calixto Ortega Sanchez, president of the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV), announced that in the first quarter of this year the private sector of Venezuela experienced an economic growth of 17.04 per cent. Ortega also added that the Venezuelan economy has registered double-digit growth in four consecutive quarters, including the second quarter of 2022.

Guyana held the first place with a projected 52 per cent economic growth. The economies expected to grow the most this year are Guyana at 52 per cent, Venezuela at 10 per cent, Panama at seven per cent, Colombia at 6.5 per cent, the Dominican Republic at 5.3 per cent; Uruguay at 4.5 per cent, Guatemala at four per cent, Honduras at 3.8 per cent, Bolivia at 3.5 per cent, and Argentina at 3.5 per cent.

Other Latin countries expected to grow in 2022

The countries that appear after this first tier are Costa Rica at 3.3 per cent, Cuba at three per cent, Nicaragua at three per cent, Ecuador at 2.7 per cent, Peru at 2.5 per cent, and El Salvador at 2.5 per cent. Finally, the countries with the least projected growth for 2022 are Mexico at 1.9 per cent, Chile at 1.9 per cent, Brazil at 1.6 per cent, Paraguay at 0.2 per cent and Haiti at 0.2 per cent.

The economic growth for the entire Latin American and the Caribbean region has been projected at 2.7 per cent. For Latin America, this figure is 2.6 per cent, while for the Caribbean it will be 10.5 per cent, or 4.7 per cent excluding Guyana.

The lowest economic growth of 2022 in the region has been projected for Central America and Mexico, at 2.5 per cent, with the largest economy of the region, Mexico, forecast to grow by only 1.9 per cent.

ECLAC says the economic slowdown in the region has been deepened by the effects of the conflict in Ukraine and the growing constraints faced by domestic macroeconomic policies attempting to promote growth.

ECLAC has concluded that the entire region will return to the low growth it had seen before the start of the pandemic.