Value-added exports from special regimes grow 21% through August

The expert also applauded the reactivation of Panama's foreign trade agenda, after more than six or seven years, with the negotiation of Panama's accession as an 'associated state' to the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), since “it helps us to consolidate a relationship that we have had for some time and that our productive sectors are already familiar with”.

The reason: the country has agreements and business with some of the member countries of this economic bloc.

“Accession can become an enhancer of the capabilities of the country's logistics platform, but [as a country] we need trade facilitation, we need to integrate rules of origin and insert ourselves into value chains, and that means that Panama should generate added value from its special zones,” Sheffer said.

“I am very pleased that Brazil and Uruguay, for example, have negotiated agreements with each other, where preferences are guaranteed to finished goods in platforms similar to those that Panama has in free trade zones, special economic zones. So, I feel that Panama will be able to negotiate under solid conditions, which is its productive platform. We consolidated merchandise, now we have to move on to the next stage, which is to generate value from those goods and sell them in those markets,” he said. And, “how do we generate value? By integrating goods and inputs from different countries that can be consolidated in Panama, allowing us to transform goods and sell them in that market. Just as Brazil is a major exporter and the Mercosur economies are major exporters, they are also major consumers, so our productive sectors already know the market,” he said.

Rosmer Jurado, vice-president of the Panamanian Exporters Association (APEX), moderator of the SIP forum, referred to the industrial strategy employed by Costa Rica, the nearshorin[The company's objective is to seek shorter and more resilient production chains in other countries], which through technology and medical devices have been leveraged to boost their exports. “Today, Costa Rica exports in a month, what we [Panama] export in a year“... and that is something that has to do with added value,” he alleged.

Contrary to Jurado's opinion, Sheffer considered that Panama has indeed taken advantage of the nearshoringthrough the Colon Free Zone and the free trade zone regime. The pending task “is to update the way in which services are recorded in the national accounts in many of our countries. I disagree with the criterion that Panama has not taken advantage of its platform, since the Colon Free Zone and the special regimes are examples of nearshoring, ya que nuestros principales clientes están en la región [de la que formamos parte].

Meanwhile, the president of APEX, Bianca Morán, described the country's balance of goods, which, taking the export of copper concentrate out of the equation, is in deficit, although due to the boost and incursions in the Caribbean it grew by over 5.2 %.

Moran refers to August exports which, in general terms, were $42.5 million and a percentage increase of 5.2% over the figure recorded in the eighth month of 2023, which was $817.9 million.

The businesswoman emphasized that Panama needs a master plan, because each ministry and entity that works with the sector does so in an uncoordinated manner. “When you talk to the MIDA (Ministry of Agricultural Development), their system does not talk to those of MiAmbiente (Ministry of Environment), and they do not talk to those of the MICI (Ministry of Commerce and Industries), we do not have a strategy as a country, we do not even have a country brand... with a consistent strategy over the years,” said Morán.

In response to Morán's criticism, the Vice Minister of Foreign Trade of the MICI, Carlos Hoyos, responded that one of the first things they found when they arrived at the Ministry, in July, was that “inter-institutional communication was a very big challenge and we took action on the matter very quickly. Both ministers and deputy ministers are quite coordinated with respect to communication channels”.

On the part of the MICI, for example, he said that through the General Directorate of Investor Services, they requested liaison points in each of the institutions with which investors work, both local and foreign, to facilitate and streamline processes and bureaucratic issues. “It is very difficult for someone to listen to a government official telling them that this is not with them, because it is not with their institution, when the government groups together many entities and institutions that among them should be in constant proactive communication and resolve“ the situations of investors,” said Hoyos, after completing the panel “Visualizing the future of Panama's Foreign Trade Agenda”, of the forum organized by the SIP.