OPINION: Panama faces extraordinary challenges in 2024

New year, great challenges, complex circumstances. 2024 will be extraordinarily challenging, not only for the Government, but for the country, like never before in the last 20 or 30 years: The economy will grow less than in recent years and that, without a doubt, could complicate the scenario of unemployment and informality; The Government will have the great challenge of gathering the necessary income to meet budget expectations, without the debt continuing to increase uncontrollably; The reserves of the Disability, Old Age and Death subprogram of the CSS will run out, and the government has not yet devised, much less communicated to the population, a plan to get out of the quagmire. And to top it all off, the vaunted investment grade is still hanging in the balance. As if that were not enough, the elections are coming, an occasion in which, far from facing the dirty and disproportionate campaign that many predict, we expect a high-profile one, with concrete proposals on how we are going to solve the problems that we will face as a country and as a society. Meanwhile, Panamanians will have to make the decision of our lives: Who is best suited to lead the country, and integrate the Assembly and local governments? 2024 will be a year of decisions that, like never before, will determine our future. – LA PRENSA, Jan.1.