The Costa Rican economy would change very little during 2020 and everything indicates that next year will be another weak year in matters such as the revival of the economy, the generation of employment and the increase of consumption.
According to the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC) of the United Nations Organization (UN), the growth of economic activity in Costa Rica will be identical to that of 2019: the gross domestic product (GDP) would barely grow by 1.8 %, the same percentage it will have at the end of this year.
In 2020, ECLAC data shows that this 1.8% growth in Costa Rican GDP would be 0.4 percentage points higher than in Latin America, which would experience a 1.4% growth. However, the country would grow less than Central America, a region for which the agency forecasts a growth of 2.6%, just 0.1 percentage points higher than in 2019. Only Nicaragua would grow less than Costa Rica. The northern neighbor, according to Cepal, would have a -2% drop in its GDP.
El Salvador would again experience an economic growth of 2.2%, Guatemala would grow 3.2%, Honduras the same 2.9% as it had in 2019 and Panama will see a small improvement from 3.7% in in 2019, to 3.8% in 2020. Dominican Republic would go from 5% (2019) to 4.7% next year.
The fall in the rhythm of the markets has Costa Ricans living with unemployment at historical levels of 11.4%, with a profound drop in consumption and in the projections of new investments by the business community, which faces the slowdown in demand both locally and internationally. As a result of this context, the income of the families, already highly indebted, also decreased in the last year.
n the next 12 months, the UN body said, the demand for exports from Latin America and the Caribbean will also be hit by short-term events such as low global trade and activity level, which have suffered important slowdowns.