This Sunday, Capital Financiero, one of Panama´s newspapers focused only in financial news published an interesting article about Panama´s economy recovering slowly. After rising to a fantastic 10% annual a couple of years ago, compared only with China´s growth, it decreased to a 2 or 3%. During that time, many countries went below water, and we are grateful and lucky that Panama kept afloat based on the impulse of mega projects such as the Panama Canal expansion and the energy injection given by hundreds of Venezuelans who duirng that time made Panama their home.
According to the note, the monthly growth index (IMAE) shows in January a growth of 1.42% compared to the same period last year. February went to a 2.24% and March looked great at 4.7%. The accumulated result for the first trimester seems to be 2.81%.
According to the Ministry of Finance, the GDP for the country on January was 3.9%, with was 0.6 percentual points ahead of the January 2009.
The country recently got a BBB investment rate from Fitch agency and has targeted multinationals to come and relocate their regional headquarters in the country. If the published statistics are right, even tourism seems to have gone up, increasing revenues from $395,6 million in 2009 to $401,6 millions in 2010.
After all these numbers my only thought is: let´s keep it moving, but let´s not shoot for the easy “going up”. Organic seems to be the only sustainable way.