Panamapanama Is The Southernmost Country In Central America The Strat ✓ Solved

Panama Panama is the southernmost country in Central America. The strategically important Panama Canal in the center of Panama, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, is the boundary between North and South America. On December 31, 1999, the United States returned to Panama all land, buildings, infrastructure, and all management rights for the canal. Given its important geographical location, the economy of Panama is centered on a highly developed services sector, which represents more than 75% of gross domestic product (GDP). The Panama Canal and use of the U.S. dollar have promoted the strengthening of a globally oriented services economy.

The Panama Canal is essential to global trade and accounts for almost 10% of the country’s GDP. Other important components of the service economy are the Colon Free Trade Zone (CFZ), which is the second largest free port in the world, and the Trans-Panama Pipeline, which allows for the transport of crude oil between the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. Financial industry and entrepot trade developed and occupy an important position in the economy. Agriculture, forestry and fishery account for most people's livelihood, but ship-related enterprises and some financial and insurance industries have international status, resulting in a small number of super-rich classes, with a large gap between the rich and the poor.

Panama has extremes of wealth and poverty. Panama is rich in forest resources and has many tropical tree species. The timber such as mahogany, cedar and teak are abundant in the east and provide a few internationally competitive exports. The agricultural sector has lost importance over the years, accounting for less than 10% of GDP today. The farmers depend on bananas, pineapples, sugar cane, coffee and other tropical cash crops for their subsistence.

Weak industrial base, no heavy industry, the manufacturing industry is mainly agricultural and animal husbandry products processing industry and people's livelihood supplies industry and other light industry, part of the low technology home electric energy. The GNI per capita of Panama in 2019 is ,950 which is higher than the requirement for High-Income country. Panama’s stage of market development is High-Income country. However, Panama's overall economy is at a low level of development. The wealthiest around 20 percent of Panamanians control more than 50 percent of the country's wealth, while the poorest 40 percent only control around 12 percent of the country's wealth.

To some extent, the general economic health of the country is bad. Except for the wealth gap between people and people, Panama’s urban and rural areas have a large wealth disparity. Around 32% of the entire population of Panama lived in rural areas in 2019. Around 27% of the rural population lives in extreme poverty in comparison to 4% in urban areas. Even tough, the national poverty rate is decreasing, but it is still high: In 2005, the national poverty rate of Panama was at 38.3%.

In 2016, the rate decreased to 22.1%. Although the poverty rate is seeing a downward trend, there are still over one in five Panamanians is living in poverty. Panama’s poverty rate is going to rise due to the Covid-19 pandemic; the overall trend appears to be positive. From 2010 to 2018, the percentage of the population living on under