 Economists have criticized the government's fiscal policy, whose level of expenditures and indebtedness has increased significantly within the past decade while the economy was grown at a much slower pace.Between 2000 and 2006 alone, Puerto Rico's GNP rose 5.37%, while its public debt's relation to GNP rose 18%.By comparison, many other Latin American countries have seen reductions in their GNP-public debt percentages during that same time period.