Panama economy in strong recovery as visiting IMF mission meets

A mission from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is on an official visit to Panama to review the economic performance of the country, affected by the covid-19 pandemic, an official source reported Sunday.

“This is a very important visit, because we will receive the review that the IMF does annually” on Panama, ” said the Panamanian Vice Minister of Finance , Jorge Luis Almengor.

The vice minister estimated that the closing meeting with the mission should be taking place in about two weeks, when, he said, “they will transmit their findings to us from the statistical point of view, public policies, governance and obviously the results they expect in the short term.” , medium and long term for the Panamanian economy”.

The Panamanian economy is in a period of “strong recovery” but with pending tasks such as rebuilding resilience and sustaining convergence with the richest countries, reducing the deficit, strengthening financial integrity, getting off the gray list of the Financial Action Task Force International (GAFI) and strengthen the soundness of the financial sector, Almengor said.

The head of the IMF mission, Bass Bakker, affirmed that the purpose of the visit “is to know the facts and details of the recovery of the Panamanian economy, after the impact of Covid in terms of life.”

“Panama has to reinvent itself, it has done so in the past and it will have to do so in the future,” said Bakker.

Baker is accompanied on this visit to Panama by the economists Ana Sofía Pessoa, Julian Crow and Enrico Di Gregorio.

In these years of pandemic, Panamanian public finances have deteriorated, with a fiscal deficit that shot up to 5.5% in 2021 and a debt-GDP ratio located this year at 63%, according to official figures, well above around 40% from 2019.

Panama’s economy fell 17.9% in 2020 and recovered 15.3% in 2021 amid high unemployment (11.3%) and informal employment (47.6%) .

Panama’s GDP grew 9.8% in the second quarter of 2022. The Panamanian government expects the economy to grow at least 5% of GDP in 2022.