According to a study by the Consumer Protection and Competition Protection Agency (Acodeco), prices for the basket reached $280.71 last May, an increase of $13.93 from the same level in 2021.
The company said that among the products that have seen the biggest increases in their average prices, meat, grains, fats, dairy, sugar and miscellaneous stand out. In contrast, the costs of vegetables, legumes, fruit and eggs fell.
According to Bloomberg media, cited by La Estrella de Panamá newspaper, this latest measurement makes Panama’s basic basket the fourth most expensive in Latin America, behind only Honduras, Venezuela and Guatemala.
The regional panorama, the research adds, gives a glimpse of the reality the Canal Nation’s families must contend with to alleviate high food costs with monthly minimum wages of $290 to $315.
Add to all this an unemployment rate of nine percent and an informal population of the order of 48.2 percent, according to data from the National Institute for Statistics and Census and one of the basic demands of popular movements and trade union organizations.
Economist Juan Jované commented to the newspaper on the matter that in the metropolitan area, which is the most expensive area of the entire isthmus, people on minimum wages simply cannot survive as they need a minimum income of around $560.
For Jované, lowering the cost of the basic basket will depend on the development of the agricultural sector, since in this way the profitability of the lines would be more productive and the excess profit that the intermediaries make would be eliminated.
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