Excluding Guyana, the country would be the fourth economy in the region with the highest growth.
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) slightly raised its growth projection for the region’s economies in 2024, including the Dominican Republic, which increased to 4.5% from the 4.1% projected five months ago.
With this projection, the country would be the fourth economy in the region – excluding Guyana – with the highest growth, only behind Antigua and Barbuda, which would grow by 8.2%; Saint Lucia with 7.0%; and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, with 4.6%.
ECLAC raised its regional GDP growth projection for 2024 by 0.2 percentage points on Thursday, from 1.9% estimated last December to 2.1%, but warned that “the expansion remains on a path of low growth.”
“The big challenge is how to move towards higher, more dynamic, and inclusive growth,” said the UN Commission in a statement.
According to the new estimates, the United Nations agency projects South America to grow by 1.6%, Central America and Mexico by 2.7%, and the Caribbean (excluding Guyana) by 2.8%.
According to ECLAC, during 2024, global markets “will be marked by several risk factors”, such as geopolitical tensions, increases in commodity prices, and rising interest rates, which “could further increase vulnerabilities due to the debt burden in various emerging and developing economies.”
The expected low growth in 2024, assures the international organization, “is not just a cyclical problem, but reflects the decline in the trend growth rate of the regional GDP.”
“Development Crisis”
In its diagnosis, the Commission points out a “development crisis” characterized by low growth, high inequality with little social mobility, weak institutional capacity, and ineffective governance.
“These traps condition and limit the achievement of the United Nations’ Agenda 2030 and, therefore, the achievement of inclusive social development,” warned the organization.
Latin America, the world’s most unequal region and the most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, grew by 6.9% in 2021, rebounding from the 6.8% slump recorded in 2020, the largest recession in 120 years.
The slowdown in the region began in the second half of 2022, which closed with an estimated regional GDP growth of 3.7%. In 2023, the growth projection closed at 2.2%.
In 2024, ECLAC expects the median inflation in the region to decrease to 3.2%, lower than the 3.8% recorded in 2023.
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