Economy — Panama
GDP, employment, industries, public finance, and currency.
Profile updated 2026-06-02
⚡ Economy at a glance
GDP, employment, industries, public finance, and currency. Key figure for Panama: Panama's dollar-based economy rests primarily on a well-developed services sector that accounts for more than three-quarters of GDP. Services include operating the Panama Canal, logistics, banking, the Colon Free Trade Zone, insurance, container ports, flagship registry, and tourism and Panama is a center for offsho…
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Economic overview
- Economic Overview
- Panama's dollar-based economy rests primarily on a well-developed services sector that accounts for more than three-quarters of GDP. Services include operating the Panama Canal, logistics, banking, the Colon Free Trade Zone, insurance, container ports, flagship registry, and tourism and Panama is a center for offshore banking. Panama's transportation and logistics services sectors, along with infrastructure development projects, have boosted economic growth
- however, public debt surpassed $37 billion in 2016 because of excessive government spending and public works projects. The US-Panama Trade Promotion Agreement was approved by Congress and signed into law in October 2011, and entered into force in October 2012. Future growth will be bolstered by the Panama Canal expansion project that began in 2007 and was completed in 2016 at a cost of $5.3 billion - about 10-15% of current GDP. The expansion project more than doubled the Canal's capacity, enabling it to accommodate high-capacity vessels such as tankers and neopanamax vessels that are too large to traverse the existing canal. The US and China are the top users of the Canal. Strong economic performance has not translated into broadly shared prosperity, as Panama has the second worst income distribution in Latin America. About one-fourth of the population lives in poverty
- however, from 2006 to 2012 poverty was reduced by 10 percentage points.
- Industries
construction, petroleum refining, brewing, cement and other construction materials, sugar milling
- GDP - per capita (PPP)
$20,900.00 (USD)
- GDP - real growth rate
6%
GDP & growth
- GDP - Gross Domestic Product (PPP)
$109,520,000,000 (USD)
- GDP Per Capita
$20,900.00 (USD)
- GDP - real growth rate
6%
- GDP - official exchange rate
$47,470,000,000 (USD)
- GDP - composition, by end use
- household consumption: 51.3%
- government consumption: 10.8%
- investment in fixed capital: 28.1%
- investment in inventories: 8.2%
- exports of goods and services: 72.6%
- imports of goods and services: -71%
- GDP by Sector- agriculture
3%
- GDP by Sector- Industry
20%
- GDP by Sector- services
77%
- Industrial Growth Rate
-1%
Prices & money
- Inflation Rate
3.5%
- Exchange Rate per US Dollar
balboa (PAB); US dollar (USD)
- Currency Name and Code
Panamanian Balboa (PAB) and US Dollar (USD)
- Fiscal Year
calendar year
- Commercial Bank Prime Lending Rate
6.91%
Employment & labor
- Labor Force
1,557,000
- Unemployment Rate
6.5%
- Major Industries
construction, petroleum refining, brewing, cement and other construction materials, sugar milling
- Agriculture Products
- bananas, rice, corn, coffee, sugarcane, vegetables
- livestock
- shrimp
- Population Below Poverty Line
25.6%
- Child Labor - # of children ages 5-14
59,294
- Child Labor - % of children ages 5-14
7%
- Child Labor - note
note: data represents children ages 5-17
Public finance
- Annual Budget
$6,994,000,000 (USD)
- Public Debt (% of GDP)
73.2%
- Budget Surplus or Deficit - percent of GDP
-2.6%
- Taxes and other revenues - percent of GDP
25.4%