Above: flooding in Haiti lowered the country’s GDP estimate for 2012, but it is projected to grow 6 percent in 2013 (UN Photo/Logan Abassi)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Haiti is projected to lead the Caribbean in GDP growth in 2013, according to a new report from the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Haiti had been projected to lead the region in GDP growth in 2012, with growth of more than 6 percent, but its estimated growth for 2012 was lowered by ECLAC. That followed a similar downward projection by the International Monetary Fund, which cited a series of damaging storms as a major factor (along with a low execution of public capital spending). Haiti grew by 5.6 percent in 2011.

Jamaica is projected to post the Caribbean’s slowest growth in 2013, at 0.1 percent.

With Haiti’s lowered projection, Belize posted the highest estimated growth in the Caribbean in 2012, with a rate of 4.2 percent.

ECLAC said the region as a whole would see stronger economic growth, despite “ongoing uncertainties” at the international level.

In the wider Caribbean basin, Panama is projected to lead with growth of 7.5 percent in 2013.

The Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole will end 2012 with GDP growth of 3.1 percent, the report said. The Caribbean subregion (Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Haiti were not included by the UN in this region) was projected to grow by 2.0 percent in 2013.

“The challenge for Latin America and the Caribbean is still to increase and stabilize investment growth, and not to depend exclusively on consumption as a means of driving structural change with equality, incorporating technical progress and delivering sustainable growth,” said Alicia Barcena, executive secretary of ECLAC.

See the full estimates and projections for the Caribbean for 2012 and 2013 below.