Central American and Caribbean Countries Economic Tracker, H1 2020

The outlook for the Central America and Caribbean economies is expected to stay bleak in 2020, registering technical recession in Q2–Q3 of 2020 and a full year recession for 2021. Local and global containment measures, along with the economies’ large dependence on tourism and remittances particularly coming from the United States, have led to a massive contraction in government revenues across countries in the regions. On the upside, the fact that most governments have started relaxing social distancing measures from May will help the resumption of activities from Q3. Frost & Sullivan predicts the Central American and Caribbean economies to contract -0.9% in 2020, before growing 2.0% in 2021. Central America and Caribbean Countries: Costa Rica The Dominican Republic Guatemala Panama Puerto Rico Trinidad and Tobago Industries: Economic indicators, demographics, energy, manufacturing, food and beverages, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, plastics, mining, electricity, construction, agriculture, healthcare, information and communication technologies Indicators: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and its components and growth, export and import, foreign direct investments, inflation, business confidence, population and demographics, index of industrial production (IIP), value-add by industry, trade by industry, IIP by industry, production of important commodities, oil production and consumption, oil export and import, renewable energy, emissions, coal production and consumption, healthcare spending, Internet and mobile subscription, and regional GDP growth calculation Year, Quarter, and Month Coverage: Yearly data: 2015–2024 Quarterly data: Q1 2015–Q2 2021 (select indicators) Monthly data: January 2015–June 2020 (select indicators) Author: Rituparna Majumder