Central America maintains constant competitiveness indexes in the last five years

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The global competitiveness index remained relatively constant in the last five years among the countries that make up the Central American Integration System (SICA) region, according to a report promoted by the Center for the Promotion of Micro and Small Enterprises (Cenpromype).

Researcher Gabriel Fernandez pointed out that the levels of business competitiveness of Panama and Costa Rica stood out in the last five years among the SICA countries,  surpassing the Latin American average.

Fernandez is one of the researchers who participated in preparing the report “Scenarios and evolution of MSMEs in the SICA region”.

The expert pointed out that Costa Rica and Panama “in almost all the indexes have a better performance,” so “they are the countries that stand out the most” in Central America.”

The study points out that in the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), which measures the level of competence and production that an economy has globally, Costa Rica has the highest score with 62 points, followed by Panama with 61 and the Dominican Republic with 57.50 in 2020.

When comparing the average of Central America with Latin America, the report adds, “there are no major differences between their respective scores”.

In the Doing Business index, the document highlights that the average of the SICA region in 2020 was 61.24 compared to 60.19 in Latin America. The study realizes that Central America has been higher in this index at least since 2016.

BREAKS NEGATIVE PERCEPTION

For Fernández, these indexes mean that “there is a change in the perception” that “almost all indicators are worse in Central America than in the rest of Latin America.”

“There is no evidence of lower levels of development in these aspects measured by the indexes at the regional level, which breaks the generalized perception that Central America in this type of indicators is a little bit below the Latin American region; this is not the case,” he stressed.

The aforementioned study is the “result of research carried out within the Regional Observatory of Competitiveness, Productivity and Sustainable Development of MSMEs,” David Cabrera, interim executive director of Cenpromype, told Efe.

“The study and the research are very enriching because it gives us a very latent approximation of where we have to focus our efforts, from the national and regional point of view, to promote this competitive and productive improvement of entrepreneurship and MSMEs,” Cabrera said.