Economic trends in Central America

Development in the Central American countries in the past quarter-century has shown positive features, which are brought out by the author: an annual average rate of economic growth of more than 5% , a near-doubling of real income per capita, expansion and diversification of exports, a surge forward in industrialization, the extension and improvement of communications and social services, and so on. Nevertheless, long-standing problems have remained, and new ones have arisen: external dependence, a tendency towards external disequilibrium, uneven distribution of the benefits of economic growth, with its consequences of poverty, unemployment, underemployment and marginal status, growing difficulties encountered by the political systems in coping with the divergent pressures of a rapidly diversifying society, and inconsistencies and conflicts between the public and private sectors. To this has been added, in recent years, the problems caused by the rise in the price of oil, inflation and growing external indebtedness.