LatinNews Daily - 14 May 2025

*Following the conclusion of an Article IV mission to Costa Rica, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has highlighted Costa Rica’s “remarkable economic progress” which it attributes to its “very strong fundamentals, policies, and policy frameworks”. According to the IMF, Costa Rica’s GDP growth has averaged over 5% per year since 2021, while inflation is rising toward the central bank (BCR)’s 3% target, which the IMF expects to be reached in 2026, public debt has dropped steadily to less than 60% of GDP, international reserves are “at comfortable levels”, and “systemic financial stability risks are contained”. The IMF expects Costa Rica’s growth to moderate to around 3.5% this year while the current account deficit is expected to increase slightly to 1.8% of GDP and the primary surplus is expected to rise to 1.25% of GDP. On 12 May Costa Rica’s finance ministry released new figures showing that at the close of the first quarter of 2025, public debt as a percentage of GDP was 57.4%, 2.4 percentage points less than at the end of 2024 when it reached 59.8% of GDP. According to the same figures, the fiscal deficit was ₡357.10bn (US$703.47m) in the first quarter of 2025 equivalent to 0.69% of GDP, an improvement of 0.02 percentage points on the first quarter of 2024 when the fiscal deficit was 0.71% of GDP. The BCR attributes the improvement to the growth in total income and reduction in payment of interest.

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