These Central American countries will outperform Mexico's economic growth by 2025; ECLAC data
According to data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean ( ECLAC ), these are the Central American countries that have outperformed Mexico's economic growth so far in 2025 .
As ECLAC noted, it presented this Tuesday, August 5, the new edition of its annual report “ Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean 2025. Mobilizing Resources for Financing Development.”
And in it, the commission warns that the region continues to experience low growth , estimating that, on average, real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will only grow 2.2% in 2025. But what about Mexico? This is how it fared.
Among the ECLAC data presented was Mexico's economic growth through June 2025, whose GDP fell to 0.3% , and these are the Central American countries that exceeded it:
- Panama: 4.2%
- Dominican Republic: 3.7%
- Guatemala: 3.6%
- Costa Rica: 3.5%
- Honduras: 3.2%
- Nicaragua: 3.1%
- El Salvador: 2.4%
As ECLAC highlights, the average GDP in Central America and Mexico for 2025 is 1.0% , which is just under half of the 2024 growth.
And he attributes this weakening in Central America to the decline in external demand, especially from the United States, which has affected Panama and the Dominican Republic to a lesser extent.
Regarding Mexico , its economic growth for 2024 was 1.4%, that is, its GDP in 2025 was 1.1% lower , which influenced the decrease in the average for all of Central America .
According to ECLAC data, Mexico was only ahead of two Central American countries in terms of economic growth: Haiti, with a -2.3%, and Cuba, with a -1.5%.
Although ECLAC expects economic growth of 1.7% in Central America by 2026, Mexico would see growth of 1.0%, according to its projections.
According to ECLAC Secretary General José Salazar , the Central American region has the highest projection of economic growth for 2026 , at 3.4%, so the commission issued the following recommendations.
The first and most urgent need is for Central America and the rest of the region to mobilize greater resources to overcome high inequality and what he defined as persistent structural development gaps.
The report notes that both Latin America and the Caribbean will face the challenge of preserving their macroeconomic stability in the medium term, given the increasingly volatile international environment.
In light of this, ECLAC points out that they must identify both fiscal and structural challenges, as well as the role that development banks play in channeling financing sources for resource mobilization.
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