Panama’s trade deficit narrowed to PAB 1036.9 million in July 2019 from PAB 1070.6 million in the corresponding month of the previous year. Exports jumped 35.7 percent over a year earlier to PAB 77.4 million, driven by higher sales of fish oil (213 percent); banana (13.5 percent); coffee (123 percent); wood (60.9 percent) and others (28.7 percent). Imports fell 1.2 percent to PAB 1114.4 million, mainly due to lower purchases of consumption goods (-8.4 percent), namely non-durable (-3.4 percent), semi-durable (-1.4 percent), and fuels & lubricants (-17.9 percent); and capital (-0.7 percent), in particular transport equipment & telecommunication (-1.2 percent), agricultural (-21.5 percent) and other capital goods (-12.3 percent). Balance of Trade in Panama averaged -717911.42 PAB Thousand from 2003 until 2019, reaching an all time high of -164179 PAB Thousand in February of 2005 and a record low of -1274300 PAB Thousand in October of 2014.
Balance of Trade in Panama is expected to be -1019000.00 PAB Thousand by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, we estimate Balance of Trade in Panama to stand at -1057700.00 in 12 months time. In the long-term, the Panama Balance of Trade is projected to trend around -1114000.00 PAB Thousand in 2020, according to our econometric models.