LatinNews Regional Monitor: Caribbean & Central America - 16 April 2020

* Guatemala’s economy minister, Antonio Malouf, has said that despite the negative forecast from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) regarding the country's GDP growth this year due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, the Guatemalan government is nonetheless hoping for positive GDP growth. Malouf made the comment after meetings with ministers and representatives from the finance, development, agriculture, and energy & mining ministries, as well as representatives from the central bank (Banguat) and the tax authorities (SAT). In its latest projections, the IMF forecast that Guatemala’s economy will contract by 2% in 2020 due to the economic impact of the pandemic. At the start of the year, Banguat forecast GDP growth of between 3.1% and 4.1%, compared to 3.5% in 2019, and last month President Alejandro Giammattei said that he expected Covid-19 would result in a one percentage point drop in Guatemala’s 2020 GDP growth.

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