Panama among the countries with the highest economic growth in Latin America in 2025

Posted on 2025-08-05

The country is positioned as the second fastest-growing economy in the region

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) on Tuesday improved its regional growth forecast for this year by two-tenths of a percentage point, raising its estimate to 2.2% despite the trade war.

Latin America and the Caribbean will experience a new phase of economic slowdown in 2025. After a rebound in the first quarters of 2024, regional GDP growth slowed toward the end of that year and is expected to slow from 2.3% in 2024 to 2.2% in 2025,” warned the Santiago-based United Nations agency.

This trend, ECLAC added in its “Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean 2025,” confirms a decade of low growth, in which average GDP growth has been just 1.2% in the 2016-2025 period, even lower than that recorded in the 1980s.

This is the second update issued by ECLAC since US President Donald Trump launched a trade war against most of its trading partners, including Latin America.

By 2026, the international organization estimates the region will expand by 2.3%.

Argentina and Panama Lead the Way
Argentina (5%), Panama (4.2%), Paraguay (4%), the Dominican Republic (3.7%), Guatemala (3.6%), and Costa Rica (3.5%) will lead economic growth this year, according to new ECLAC figures.

In the middle of the table are Honduras (3.2%), Nicaragua (3.1%), Peru (3.1%), Uruguay (2.8%), Colombia (2.5%), Chile (2.4%), El Salvador (2.4%), Brazil (2.3%), and Venezuela (2%).

At the bottom, but still with positive figures, are the Caribbean islands (1.8%)—excluding Guyana—Bolivia (1.5%), Ecuador (1.5%), and Mexico (0.3%), while Cuba (-1.5%) and Haiti (-2.3%) are the only ones that will see a decline this year, according to the United Nations agency.

“Economic performance will continue to be conditioned by weak external demand, restrictive financial conditions, and the fragility derived from internal factors such as less dynamic consumption, low investment, high informal labor, and persistent structural inequalities,” ECLAC explained.

The global and regional outlook for 2025 and 2026, it added, “is subject to high uncertainty. The growth dynamics of the region's economies could deteriorate due to an increase in global risks.”

Latin America, the most unequal region in the world, closed both 2023 and 2024 with growth of 2.3%.