Violence costs El Salvador almost half of GDP

El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala are among the nations whose economies are most affected by violence, according to the Global Peace Index, published by the Institute for Economics and Peace, based in Sydney, Australia.

The economy of El Salvador is the world's fourth most affected by violence, which costs 49 percent of its GDP, the index says.

At the other end of the scale, violence costs only 9 percent of the GDP of Costa Rica, and 7 percent in the case of Panama.