ESCP ALUMNI magazine - #195 - Automne 2021 - 70

Culture ❙ Regards sur le monde
Propos recueillis par Arthur Jeanne
" I'm optimistic about
the future of Guatemala "
From Guatemala City, Anna Stephanie MUNOZ (MEB 01) tells us more about her country's
economic situation and the challenges the state of Central America is facing. Let's meet her in
beautiful Guate!
was heavily criticized because of corruption.
They were supposed to build hospitals , to
improve the health system and to implement
a successful vaccination campaign, but there
are suspicions that some money was stolen. As
a consequence, lots of people who can afford
it are going to the States to get vaccinated.
Miami or Houston became destinations of
vaccination tourism for well-off guatemalans.
Anna Stephanie MUNOZ (MEB 01)
Founder of " Excede tu potencial "
How Guatemala handled the
Covid 19 crisis since the beginning?
We started the lockdown on the 21st
of march
2020. It was a full lockdown. At the beginning,
we were one of the countries in Latin America
that better handled the situation. By this time,
we barely had any cases. Then a lot of illegal
immigrants who went to the United States
got Covid there. They were deported, came
back and started contaging people. Moving
fastforward, our government opened the
borders by september. It was a necessity to
reactivate the economy. When a second wave
hitted the coutry, public and private sector
together decided that they weren't going to
do an other lockdown because the economy
would have collapsed.
What about the vaccination
campaign?
The vaccination campaign started slowly in
comparition with other countries. The second
shot is still an issue here. Our government
70 ❙
Are you optimistic about the
reactivation of Guatemala's
economy?
Yes. We were the second country in Latin
America that had the least impact on its GDP.
In 2020, our GDP shrank 1,5% (for Panama it
was almost 18%). Guatemala will, according
to the surveys, come out of the crisis faster
than its neighbours. It will take about 2 years
for Guatemala to go back to normal. For
some countries like Panama, it will be around
5 years. So, I think that in the coming two
years, it's going to be much better. However,
I worry about education which is something
our government hadn't handle well. If we
speak about public education, no child has
gone to school since the pandemic started*.
And no virtual classes were taught because
poor people don't even have a computer.
That's going to impact the country a lot. We're
not seeing it right now because education has
a long term impact.
Tourism is also important for
Guatemala, how bad the impacton
this sector was?
A lot of the tourism here is business tourism.
People coming for meetings in Guatemala
ESCP Alumni Magazine numéro 195 ❙ AUTOMNE 2021
City. In this field, things are going very slowly.
By may, they had 20% room occupation
rate in the hotel industry. It will get better
hopefullybut we don't really know how the
business travelling would work in a near future.
During the pandemic, people realised they
don't need to travel that much. As a result,
companies are cutting their business travelling
budget up.
Kamala Harris, the Vice President
of the United States, was recently in
Guatemala. She asked Guatemalan
migrants not to come to the US. What
do you think about that ?
The question we have to ask ourselves is:
why do immigrants, legal and illegal go the
United States? It's because there are better
opportunities there. Immigrants generate
more money and can send it to their families.
That is a problem that avoided Guatemala
from moving forward in many ways, our
country hasn't been able to help people
to come out of poverty. The interesting
part is that the government has a project.
A plan to start creating more employment
in Guatemala. Its name is «Guatemala no
se detiene» (Guatemala is not stopping),
In the coming ten years, it aims to generate
2,5 millions new formal employees. If they are
able to do this, it will be a huge step forward. ❙
*Interview realised in june 2021

ESCP ALUMNI magazine - #195 - Automne 2021

Table des matières de la publication ESCP ALUMNI magazine - #195 - Automne 2021