Panama’s GDP grew 8.8% in the first half of 2023

He Ministry of Economy and Finance (MPEG) reported that in the first half of 2023 Quarterly gross domestic product (GDP) Panama experienced growth from 8.8%reaching $38,100.6 million, according to figures released by The State Institute for Statistics and Population Census (INEC) of the Chief Inspector of the Republic.

This increase of 3,070.5 million dollars Compared to the same period in 2022, this reflects solid economic momentum.

INEC said the economic performance assessment covers the first two quarters of 2023, together with a retrospective series covering the years 2018-2022.

These figures, updated and based on the reference year 2018, replace previous figures based on 2007 in Quarterly National Accounts (CNT).

The figures also reveal that in the first quarter of this year there was a growth of 9.3%, while in the second quarter the growth was 8.2%.

This latest increase is attributed to the favorable results of various internal economic activities, such as construction with an increase of 53.3%wholesale and retail trade, manufacturing, electricity and water, restaurants and land transport, with a significant increase in the metro and MiBus of 15.7% and 6.1%, respectively.

instead of that, health services, hydraulic energy production with a decrease of 37.9%and cattle slaughter with 2.8% less, are some of the areas where negative deviations were recorded.

At the international level, activities have shown an increase in air traffic, revenue from tolls in airport operations, Panama Canal with a positive variation of 15.0%, and the export of bananas and fish with an increase of 33.3% and 30.6%, respectively.

On the other hand, the export of copper and shrimp concentrate experienced a drop of 90,086 produced tons or 16.9%, according to the INEC report.