The Panamanian economy shot up 6.8 percent in the first quarter of the ongoing year compared to the same span of time the year before, with considerable contributions made by the nation’s leisure industry.

Panama’s Finance Minister Norberto Delgado said in a press conference that the disclosed economic numbers match this year’s 4.1 percent growth estimate.

Mr. Delgado said Wednesday the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) could augment somewhere between 4.5 and 5.5 percent later this year.

German travel agencies are upbeat about their own business expectations for 2004 after the good sale numbers posted during the past Easter holiday season.

Negotiations are underway in Kingston, Jamaica, between the European Union (EU) and the Caribbean’s fifteen member states in order to hammer out an economic collaboration agreement. The process, scheduled to be wrapped up in 2007, will contribute to further open up trade between both regions and set up clear-cut commercial guidelines, according to a press release issued by the European Community.

Spanish investors have already anted up more than $900 million into the travel industry of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo over the last seven years, local authorities informed today.

Luis Garcia Silva, Quintana Roo’s secretary of economic development, told Spanish news agency EFE that his state “has panned out to be the investment core of Spanish travel companies.”

A group of American and Costa Rican businesspeople trumpeted their interest in making a megabuck investment in an assortment of tourist projects in Golfito, in southern Costa Rica.

The total cost of the plan that counts on the government’s support will hover around $400 million, Tourism Minister Rodrigo Castro was quoted as saying in local newspaper Al Dia.

Inflation in the Dominican Republic rose an incredible 24.4 percent in the first quarter of the ongoing year, while inflation rate for a single month peaked 62.3 percent in March, the country’s Central Bank reported today.

According to a press release issued by the CB, the consumer index was up 2.3 percent in the month of March.

The CB underlined such a price variation in March stood for “a significant slowdown from the numbers posted in January (9.2 percent) and February (11.2 percent) of last year.