The low level of public investment in Panama during 2016 will have a negative impact on the economic growth of the country as has been estimated by large international financial organizations, experts point out.
According to the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the Panamanian economy's growth for this year will be 5.9%, 6.1% and 6.2%, respectively.
Figures that, according to experts, will be very difficult to reach taking into account the low levels of public investment in the country in the last two years.
Approaching 2015, the rate of public investment fell to 6%, approximately, which affected the economic environment and only allowed for the economy of the country to grow to 4.6% in the first quarter of 2016.
The situation places the country in a very difficult ability to achieve the levels of economic growth, since, for example, according to experts, to grow to 6 %, the gross domestic product (GDP) in the second quarter of this year should be at least B/.9,241 million, which is unlikely based on the level of public investment presented in the report of the fiscal balance to June 2016 by the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), in which an implementation of the budget of public investment that does not exceed B/.1,600 million was proposed.
Reyes Arturo Valverde, financial consultant and economist, believes that for projecting economic growth just as these large financial agencies did, the country must have counted on public investments in the first quarter over B/.2,000 million, but it did not.
He added that this development of the public investment would allow a private investment above B/.15 thousand million and not B/.13 thousand million that is managed at present, since the public investments have an impact of almost four times on the development of the economic activity.
He pointed out that when you invest a dollar in the public sector, you can get four dollars in the economy, something that economists call " economic impact ", whenever any sort of work or any kind of government investment in the country is developed.
"While the public investment is almost 4.35% times less than the private, the private sector in Panama is more service-based, what has a lesser impact on the economic activity of the country, thus producing B/.3.09 for every dollar invested", said economist Valverde.
He stressed that while the private investment is important, there are more benefits for other countries, as in the case of the Chinese logistics, specifically, that uses the platform of service of Panama to get higher economic gains.
By his part, economist Juan Jované said that the public investment has an important component which is construction, sector that has a multiplier effect in the economy of the country since it generates jobs that produce expenses and investment in different sectors.
He added that, indeed, the reduction of governmental public investment in the country limits that multiplier effect in the economy.
"I do not see in what ways the Panamanian economy can get to grow to 6%, I think that we are going to get near 4.5% or 4.6% and not at the levels that have been projected by these large international financial agencies ", added Jované.
The Economist said that this will happen, not because the State has no funding, but due to a problem of implementation, since the Government has failed to bring forward the investment projects that had been planned out.
Meanwhile, Aida Michelle de Maduro, President of the National Council of the Private Sector (Conep), said that what are seeing in the descending growth of the economy is the effect of the actions that we did not start as a country through a joint effort by both the private sector and the public sector.
She added that to the extent that a greater integration between these two sectors is achieved, the economy would also have a better direction and become strengthened.
On the same matter, Michel Morales, President in-charge of the Union of Industrialists of Panama, stressed that the Panamanian economy will grow this year between 5.6% and 5.8% and not 6% as these financial agencies have said.
He indicated that the authorities should promote the private investment in the country more to boost the productive sectors, mainly the manufacturing industry.
