President Juan Carlos Varela, his day  lightened by the sight of Panama’s  National football team boarding a plane for the first leg of its journey to the World Cup, and the prospect of his joining the team during a soccer diplomacy jaunt  to Russia, was bullish on Saturday, June 2  about the country’s economic future in spite  of the IMF downgrading of Panama’ 5.6% growth projection for the year.

He predictably laid the blame on the month-long construction sector strike which was, he said.  unnecessary and could have been avoided. Varela regretted that the two parties had to spend a month to reach an understanding when  it could have been achieved in “three to five days.”

"We have to  analyze what we did right or wrong, "he said but omitted to mention his own trip to London and Israel immediately after he called for arbitration and a return to work.

The IMF concluded its annual visit to Panama on Friday and said that Panama’s economy was weakened in the wake of the strike and projected a downward revision of one percentage point from its estimate of 5.6% for 2018.

"That point of growth costs jobs, costs benefits," said the president. However, he expressed his confidence in the recovery of the country saying that there are seven months to streamline the state works, motivate private companies to invest and to bring foreign investment to the country.

He said that in spite of the reduced forecast for 2018, Panama still has the strongest growth in Latin America and in the 2019   year (when his term ends) growth will be 7 percent.