Panama Conference To Focus On Increased Foreign Trade As A Means Of Lifting The Economy

by Mike Godfrey, Tax-news.com, New York

12 April 2001

Later this month a major conference is due to to take place in Panama which will look at increased foreign trade as the way forward in helping the central American country out of its economic doldrums. "Panama Faces The World: A Strategy For Foreign Trade" will be the theme of the Annual Executives' Conference (CADE), which the National Association of Business Executives (APEDE) is holding between April 26 and 28.

The conference will address subjects including globalisation, the current state of Panama's foreign trade, attracting investment, international negotiations and agreements, competitiveness in the industrial sector and the country's financial services sector. Key speakers include Panama's vice-minister of commerce, Melitón Arrocha, and President Mireya Moscoso has also been invited to speak. Costa Rica will be well represented too, with a former president and its vice-minister of trade both due to address the conference.

Local publication the Panama News quoted APEDE's executive director, Ariel Alba Rincon, as saying that the event will take stock of a country that is 'confronted with the historic opportunity to maximize the use of our geographical position, to present Panama with an integrated foreign trade strategy that takes into account exports of both goods and services, and to attract foreign investment.'

The conference follows on from a similar event last year, which Mr Rincon called a "great national forum" that boosted economic growth in a year that was difficult for business. This year's conference, said Mr Rincon, would "serve as a forum for discussions, to identify comparative and competitive advantages in different sectors of the economy, and to evaluate the roles that the support institutions must play, with an aim toward obtaining commitments to carry out a foreign trade strategy that will allow the country to broaden its international trade relationships and consequently improve our population's social and economic levels."

Panama's financial sector, however, will come to the conference on a somewhat subdued note. Panama banks have been steadily losing business, according to the Banking Association of Panama, which reported recently that in 2000 the amount of foreign money on deposit in Panamanian banks fell by around US$1bn, with deposits by private individuals rising slightly but inter-bank and other institutional deposits going down. The Association has put the decline in business from foreign banks down to an ongoing trend, but has also attributed it in part to the country's blacklisting by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

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