{"id":324,"date":"2015-09-08T10:57:25","date_gmt":"2015-09-08T16:57:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trends.ufm.edu\/en\/?post_type=articulo-semanal&p=324"},"modified":"2016-11-28T15:32:31","modified_gmt":"2016-11-28T21:32:31","slug":"what-can-we-expect-from-the-guatemalan-and-global-economy","status":"publish","type":"articulo-semanal","link":"https:\/\/trends.ufm.edu\/en\/article\/what-can-we-expect-from-the-guatemalan-and-global-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"What Can We Expect From the Guatemalan and Global Economy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Clynton R. L\u00f3pez F. \u00a0 September 7, 2015<\/p>\n

clyntonr@ufm.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

Translated from Spanish by Daniel Contreras<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Historically, the Guatemalan economy has had low volatility. For the past twenty years, the average growth rate has been 3.5%.[1]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a>\u00a0This level of volatility is generally lower than that of the other economies in the region. However, as the country suffers its worst political crisis since 1993, the question on everyone\u2019s mind is, Will the political crisis affect the economy? To answer this question we first need to take a look at some microeconomic data.<\/p>\n

According to the export index calculated in the\u00a0UFM Market Trends<\/em> 2015 first quarter report, Guatemala\u2019s principal\u00a0exports\u00a0are sugar, banana, coffee, and textiles. After the worldwide commodities bubble affected basically all commodities, the international price of sugar currently sits at 2006 levels, almost one third of what the price was in 2012. Prices for natural rubber, another important export, are currently 20% lower than they were in 2011.<\/p>\n

The macroeconomic data, however, tells a slightly different story. Graph 1 shows Guatemala\u2019s annual quarterly GDP growth since 2001. The trendline is almost horizontal, indicating that growth for the past fifteen\u00a0years has been stable at just over 3.5%.<\/p>\n

Graph 1 <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Gt<\/a><\/p>\n

In Graph 2, we see\u00a0the seasonality calculated by the quarterly reports of Guatemala\u2019s GDP. We can\u00a0clearly see that average volatility in Guatemala\u2019s GDP is practically negligible. Not even the positive seasonality in the first\u00a0and fourth quarters or the negative seasonality in the second\u00a0or third\u00a0quarters reach a two\u00a0decimal difference. Unfortunately, quarterly GDP data for Guatemala is delayed six months, but based on\u00a0the information published for the first quarter of 2015 we can assume that the macroeconomic data will remain the same. Microeconomic export data tells a different story. UFM Market Trends<\/em> will delve deeper into this in our second quarter report as we take a closer look at the current economic situation in Guatemala and how it reacts to the political crisis.<\/p>\n

Graph 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Seasonal<\/a><\/p>\n

What can we expect from Guatemala and the global economy? Aside from important economic developments in other parts of the world, the Guatemalan economy continues to be closely tied\u00a0to the performance of the US economy. On August 27, the Bureau of Economic Analysis published its revised numbers for real GDP growth in the US\u00a0during\u00a0the second quarter of 2015. Real GDP was revised up from 2.3% to 3.7%, 1.4% higher than estimates. The 3.7% figure is a significant increase over the 0.6% real GDP growth experienced during the first quarter of 2015. (These figures also point to Guatemala\u2019s relative stability in terms of GDP.)<\/p>\n

Independently of China\u2019s economic deceleration, the EU\u2019s sluggish performance, and Japan\u2019s continual QE failures, an accelerated US GDP growth would be welcome news for Guatemala. All these subjects will be explored in greater detail in the\u00a0UFM Market Trends s<\/em>econd quarter report for\u00a02015.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Data obtained from Guatemala’s central bank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Historically, the Guatemalan economy has had low volatility. For the past twenty years, the average growth rate has been 3.5%. [1] This level of volatility is generally lower than that of the other economies in the region. However, as the country suffers its worst political crisis since 1993, the question on everyone\u2019s mind is, Will the political crisis affect the economy?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"anio":"2015","mes":"September","id_estadisticas":"","newsletter_link":"","portada_informe":"","subtitulo":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[12],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-324","articulo-semanal","type-articulo-semanal","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-guatemala"],"meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trends.ufm.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articulo-semanal\/324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trends.ufm.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articulo-semanal"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trends.ufm.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/articulo-semanal"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trends.ufm.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trends.ufm.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/trends.ufm.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articulo-semanal\/324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":523,"href":"https:\/\/trends.ufm.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articulo-semanal\/324\/revisions\/523"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trends.ufm.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trends.ufm.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trends.ufm.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trends.ufm.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}