PANAMA’S gross domestic product (GDP)   climbed 3.7% to $2.0393 billion, in the first half pf 2018, the lowest rate of growth of the economy in one semester since the world financial crisis in 2009 GDP grew 2.4%. reports the Comptroller General Since then, the mid-year growth has always reached at least around 5%, with some peaks that exceeded 10%.

The result of this year marks a deceleration of almost two percentage points in comparison with the 5.8% growth of the economy in the first half of 2017.

The one-month strike of construction workers was a  major contributing factor, combined with, shrinking tourism figures leading to layoffs of over 5,000 hotel and restaurant workers.