MEXICO CITY, Mexico. Wed. Jan. 12, 2022– In its annual report issued on Wednesday, The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) stated that some parts of the region are expected to see a slowdown in economic growth in 2022. The report, titled “Preliminary Overview of the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean 2021”, was issued by ECLAC Executive Secretary Alicia Bárcena. But despite the prediction that 2022 will be a challenging year for some parts of Latin America, the economy in Belize is expected to undergo an accelerated pace of growth — jumping from last year’s growth rate of 2.7% to 6.2%. And the same can be said for almost all the Caribbean nations.
“The Caribbean will bounce back in 2022,” noted Bárcena. The growth rate for Central America, on the other hand, is expected to fall from 6.7% to 4.5%.
When it comes to the Latin American and Caribbean region overall, ECLAC has predicted that the growth rate will fall from the 6.2% achieved in 2021 to 2.1% in 2022. The organization attributes this decrease to the differences between developed, emerging, and developing economies across the region and the variations in their capacity to sustainably recover from the crisis caused by COVID-19. A striking example of this is the large variations among vaccination rates in the region. While countries such as Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay reported vaccination rates of over 70%, the vaccination rates in countries such as Jamaica, Haiti, and Guatemala remain below 25%, with Haiti’s vaccination rate being only 0.66%. Belize, Barbados, and Mexico lie somewhere in the middle of this range, with rates of 50% or more.
“The expected slowdown in the region in 2022, combined with the problems of low investment and productivity, poverty, and inequality, calls for growth and employment creation to be central elements of public policymaking,” said Barcena.
When asked whether Latin America and the Caribbean would see full economic recovery anytime soon, Bárcena pointed out that while advanced economies might achieve it by the end of 2022, most emerging economies are not expected to reach full recovery until 2025.