Where Guatemala beats its regional competitors

On the benchmark data, Guatemala wins on: (1) labor scale — a labor force of 7.5 million, the largest on the isthmus, the only neighbor able to staff operations employing tens of thousands (BPO already employs 55,000, dossier 04); (2) macro and credit — Ba1/BB+/BB, equal to or better than any Central American neighbor, debt/GDP of 26.8% (dossier 10) and a rising trajectory while Mexico slides; (3) the cheapest industrial electricity in SIEPAC, in the EEGSA area (ECLAC, June 2025), with a wholesale market open to users above 100 kW; (4) geography — a land border with Mexico, a customs union with Honduras and El Salvador in accession, two coasts and three container ports; (5) a headline corporate income tax of 25%, the lowest in the table, which weighs more as Pillar 2 devalues exemptions.

The research is written in English; quoted figures, source names and the titles of legal instruments stay in the language their source published them in.