Central Bank Counts El Salvador's Uneven Growth

El Salvador’s economy grew 5.1% year over year in the second quarter of 2026, reaching US$10.06 billion, according to the Banco Central de Reserva (BCR). The headline figure comes from the central bank’s official ledger, where construction expanded as farming and personal services shrank. One growth rate. Different results.

The Official Scoreboard

Construction led second-quarter growth, expanding 11.2%. Health grew 8.7%, electricity 8.1%, and hotels and restaurants 6.3%. Farming contracted 0.9%, while personal services fell 0.5%. Together, those two sectors represented 6.4% of output.

The figures show where production rose and fell, but they don't explain how people shared in the gains. The report measures sectors, not who benefits from their growth. That difference matters when the official headline compresses uneven economic outcomes into a single percentage.

In April, the BCR forecast growth of 3.0% to 3.5% in 2026. Later projections came in higher: the International Monetary Fund projected 4.5% growth in an Oct. 1 release, and the World Bank also projected 4.5% in its October regional outlook, according to the Ministry of Economy. ECLAC raised its 2026 forecast to 4.5%, with 4.1% growth expected in 2027, Diario El Mundo reported.

These are projections, not the observed second-quarter result. The BCR’s forecast range falls below the IMF, World Bank and ECLAC estimates. The central bank and international institutions offer different views of what the year may bring, but none alters the sector-by-sector figures already reported.

Growth Has Its Uneven Ground

El Salvador recorded 3.9% growth in 2025. BCR data put output at US$36.71 billion that year, up 3.9% from 2024. The country has used the U.S. dollar since 2001, another part of the economic structure behind the official totals.

The sources describe remittances, textile and plastics factories, construction and tourism as important parts of the economy. In the second quarter, construction grew fastest among the sectors listed. But the figures don't break down wages, ownership or household income for those industries, so growth rates alone can't show who has leverage or who gets the resulting gains.

The Cost Beneath the Aggregate

The central bank reported inflation of 3.19% in August 2026. Its statistics portal put the one-year loan rate at 7.48% in September. Those measures sit alongside growth projections, but they track different pressures: inflation and borrowing costs, not output growth by sector.

The reported figures describe no grassroots response, mutual-aid effort, election proposal or legislative remedy. What they do provide is a map of uneven sector performance and forecasts from central-bank and international institutions. Construction’s 11.2% expansion drives the headline. Farming and personal services remain on the contracting side of the ledger. The aggregate is official. The unevenness is in the numbers too.