Today, Aruba’s Banco Central (BCA) publicized their ‘Economic Outlook’, which contains an update for 2022 as well as a revision of 2021. The recuperation in the tourism sector had a significant impact on the economic activities for the year 2021. In that year, “Producto Domestico Bruto” (PDB) was calculated to have grown by 17,2%, compared to a decrease of 18.6% in 2020.
Besides the increase, the PDB in 2021 is 95.4% of what it was in 2019. The available assistance programs to aid in salaries and subsidies as well as FASE from the Aruban Government also contributed positively to the PDB, as they helped to push private consumers. Ademas, un mehoracion den inversion priva (aunke na un grado menor) a hunga un rol den e rebote di PDB den 2021.
For 2022, the estimated economic growth — a ‘baseline’ increase of 2,1% with an 8,3% in nominal terms – all depends on a positive development in the tourism sector. Current projections are showing an increase in visitors from abroad with a 12,4% increase at its lowest and a 40,1% increase at best. This would be a baseline increase of 30,4% when compared to previous years.
Nevertheless, when anticipating a gradual return to normal in the amount of money that tourists spend every day, credit attributed to tourism is expected to increase slightly less in 2022, with 14,3%, which is significantly less than the 65.5% in 2021. Depending on which scenario takes place in 2022, private inversions could push the economy a little higher. On the other hand, private consumers in real terms anticipate staying generally flat for the year 2022, as a consequence of the 7.1% higher inflation rate.
The entire publication is available on their website at (www.cbaruba.org)
