Caribbean & Central America - September 2014 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Varela claims price control progress: On 24 August the new Panamanian government led by President Juan Carlos Varela trumpeted figures from the economy & finance ministry (MEF) which showed that the price of the monthly basic food basket (Canasta Básica Familiar de Alimentos, CBFA) in July was US$318.48 – a 7.7% fall compared to the previous month. In a press release the MEF claimed that this was the most significant CBFA fall in the last decade. President Varela’s first act upon taking office on 1 July was to announce temporary ‘emergency’ price controls on 22 basic goods in order to reduce inflation [RC-14-07]. While year-end inflation was 3.4% in 2013, down from 5.7% in 2012, high food prices were a major voter concern. According to the latest (4 August) report by the national statistics institute (Inec), the consumer price index (CPI) registered a 0.8% fall in July compared to June, bringing the accumulated rate for the year to 2.2%. The CPI rate for food and drink dropped 3.1% in July compared to June.

Job creation: At the end of July Panama’s labour minister, Luis Ernesto Carles, announced the launch of round table talks on labour policies, with the overall aim of generating 30,000 new jobs in the formal sector a year, over a ten year period. Those taking part in the dialogue include labour unions as well as Panama’s five main business lobbies  - Consejo Nacional de la Empresa Privada, Asociacion Panameña de Ejecutivos de Empresa, Sindicato de Industriales de Panamá, Cámara Panameña de la Construcción and Cámara de Comercio, Industria y Agricultura de Panamá - which represent the country’s 30 biggest employers.

• Unemployment

According to the most recent (August) report by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America & the Caribbean (Eclac), Panama’s unemployment rate stood at 4.1% in 2013. Meanwhile the labour force expanded by 0.7 percentage points, from 63.4% to 64.1%.