Haiti’s GDP to Grow 6 Percent, Continue to Lead Region in 2012: ECLAC

Above: construction work on Wharf Jeremy in Haiti’s Port-au-Prince (UN Photo/Logan Abassi)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Haiti’s economy is projected to grow 6 percent in 2012, followed by 7.5 percent GDP growth in 2013, according to the Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean released this week by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

The numbers follow reported growth of 5.6 percent in Haiti in 2011, and a 5.4 percent contraction in 2010 due to the earthquake.

The growth rates are slightly below projections by the International Monetary Fund, which had pegged Haiti’s 2012 growth closer to 8 percent, but remain the highest projected growth rates in the Caribbean.

Haiti maintained its 6 percent projection this year, despite a reduction in projected growth for the Latin American and Caribbean region from 3.7 percent in June to 3.2 percent in this week’s report.

“The economic performance of Latin America and the Caribbean in 2012 and 2013 is largely subject to the form taken by adjustment processes in developed countries, as well as the slowdown in China,” said Alicia Barcena, executive secretary of ECLAC. “It will also be dependent on the region’s own response capacity.”

In the wider Caribbean basin, Panama will have the largest growth rate, at 9.5 percent this year.

Haiti’s growth remains the highest in the Caribbean region, followed by Guyana, which is projected to grow at a rate of 3.8 percent this year.

The Caribbean region as a whole is projected to grow 1.6 percent in 2012, followed by 2.2 percent in 2013.

ECLAC said the English and Dutch-speaking countries of the Caribbean were in a “different position” from the rest of the region, recovering more slowly from the 2009 financial crisis.

It singled out Suriname and Guyana as having stronger economies due to their dependence on natural resources, as opposed to tourism.

See below for the full Caribbean GDP data table: