The International Monetary Fund (IMF) boosted its outlook for Costa Rica’s economic growth this week, forecasting that the country’s economy will grow by 4.2 percent this year. The projection is an increase of 0.2 percent from the IMF’s last projection of Costa Rica’s 2016 economic growth, made in October of last year.

The new projection by the IMF matches exactly the projection by Costa Rica’s Central Bank (BCCR) made in its 2016-2017 Macroeconomic Program.

Costa Rica has registered 10 consecutive months of economic growth as of February, according to the Monthly Economic Activity Index (IMAE), a rolling monthly measurement of economic growth produced by Costa Rica’s Central Bank.

Costa Rica’s economy began to recover in July of last year, led in large part by a recovering in manufacturing.

The IMF also boosted its growth outlook for Central America from 4.2 percent to 4.3 percent on Tuesday.

According to the IMF, Guatemala will grow by 4 percent this year, El Salvador by 2.5 percent, Honduras by 3.5 percent, Costa Rica by 4.2 percent, and Panama by 6.1 percent.

Meanwhile, the news is far less positive for the Latin America and Caribbean region as a whole, according to the IMF, which said on Tuesday that the greater regional economy would contract by 0.5 percent this year.

The drop in commodity prices in South America and the deeper-than-forecast recession in Brazil are dragging the numbers down into negative territory.

Brazil’s economy is forecast to shrink by 3.8 percent in 2016 for the second straight year.

Among South American exporters of petroleum, Colombia will grow this year by 2.5 percent, down from 3.1 percent in 2015, while Venezuela will continue this year “sunk in a deep recession,” as GDP plummets a full 8 percent, following a 5.7 percent drop in 2015.

The economies of Ecuador and Argentina will also shrink by 4.5 percent and 1 percent, respectively, according to the IMF; while Peru’s economy is expected to grow by 3.7 percent and Chile’s by 1.5 percent.

Latin America’s sluggish growth is expected to continue, with an average annual rate of just 1.7 percent between 2017 and 2020, less than half the 4 percent the region registered during 2003-2013, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) warned on Sunday.

EFE contributed to this report.