Central American exports increase 11.5% in 2025, according to the IDB

Central America’s exports registered an increase of 11.5% in 2025, a performance that has far surpassed the average of Latin America and the Caribbean and has left behind the stagnation evidenced the previous year, according to the report “Estimates of Trade Trends: Latin America and the Caribbean 2026” from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

This export rebound comes after a 2024 marked by slowdown and falls in several countries of the isthmus. According to the IDB, the international environment was then conditioned by volatile international prices and a less robust external demand, factors that limited the commercial flow. The document indicates that the recovery observed in 2025 is mainly linked to the increase in volumes dispatched to key markets and not to the increase in prices.

Diversification of destinations and growth engines
The report actually specifies that all Central American economies improved their export performance, allowing Mesoamerica to experience a 7.2% increase in the value of its external sales. This figure almost doubles the rate recorded in 2024, when regional growth had been 3.8%.

The IDB highlights that El Salvador, Honduras and Panama managed to reverse the falls of the previous year and, within the region, Costa Rica and Nicaragua led the acceleration with increases of 15.3% and 15.5%, respectively. El Salvador left behind the fall of 2024 and achieved an estimated expansion of 4.6%, driven by the rise of plastics, coffee and meat preparations, although sales to the United States and Asia decreased. In Honduras, exports rose 12% after the decline of 2024, highlighting the contribution of the European Union and the region, with prominence of products such as coffee, palm oil, shrimp and gold. For its part, Guatemala added an additional 7%, while Dominican Republic advanced 10%. The publication underlines that the recovery responds mainly to higher exported volumes, rather than variations in prices.

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This progress reflects the region’s ability to adapt to adverse scenarios and seize new business opportunities. In the context of destination markets, the United States, Asia, and the European Union were among the main drivers of Central American growth. The study indicates that the improvement was widespread, although these three economies provided most of the impetus, according to the IDB. In South America and Mesoamerica, this advance was explained by the greater volume of exported products. As for the Caribbean, although the overall result was positive, wide differences persist between countries and a marked instability in the behavior of their exports. In Central America, exports showed growth from the beginning of 2024, which allowed the subregion to emerge from a period of contraction. This favorable evolution, however, was interrupted in July 2025. In the Caribbean, external sales maintained an upward trajectory, although with significant fluctuations and an evident slowdown in the second half of the year. For the region as a whole, imports are estimated to have increased by 6.1% in 2025, after having grown by 3.2% in 2024. Source: INFOBAE