also in this section: Peruvian investigators look here for Montesinos's and Fujimori's funds The latest issue of Business Panama Panama's immigration laws World Bank plots rural strategy here

Europe suspends banana restrictions

After losing before a World Trade Organization panel and facing retaliatory US sanctions, the European Union has suspended a policy that favors banana imports from former European colonies in Africa and the Caribbean over Latin American fruit for five years. The EU policy has devastated Panama's banana export industry and nearly drowned the main player here, Cincinnati-based Chiquita Brands, in an ocean of red ink. Europe intends to draft new, broader rules for tropical fruit imports, which it plans to put into effect in 2006.

US report pans RP economic policies, performance

The US State Department's annual report on economic conditions abroad has generated controversy here. In its section on Panama, the report pegs Panama's economic growth last year at 2.3 percent rather than the 2.7 percent alleged by the Panamanian government, notes that Panama has not fully complied with all of the promises it has made to international lenders, and faults the Moscoso administration for not having a well defined economic policy. The report also called for further pro-management changes in our labor laws, more privatizations of state-owned enterprises and increased tax collections. Spokespeople for the Moscoso administration dispute the report, alleging that its evaluation of Panama's economy is incomplete and noting that the president was elected with a mandate to change some of the previous administration's policies that the US government and international lenders wanted to maintain. They also point out that progress is being made on almost all of the commitments made to the IMF and World Bank. The biggest commitment, for tax reform legislation, has been proposed by the Cabinet Council but was dead on arrival at the opposition-controlled Legislative Assembly and faces near-unanimous opposition from business groups.

IMF numbers differ from RP's

The International Monetary Fund has released its figures for Panama's gross domestic product in 2000, and its numbers accord with the US State Department's estimate of 2.3 percent growth during last year, differing with Comptroller General Alvin Weeden's figure of 2.7 percent. The IMF attributed the weak performance to a slow recovery of business in the Colon Free Zone, the white spot blight's devastation of shrimp farming and low yields or prices for several important agricultural commodities.

Canal expansion study contract

The Panama Canal Authority has hired a consortium of The Louis Berger Group, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the University of Panama to conduct a $297 million study of the environmental, cultural and historical resources of the western canal watershed, in which the authority seeks to build new lakes. The study will catalogue the area's fauna and flora and the habitats they need to survive, archaeological sites that may be inundated, and the economic and lifestyle needs of the people who would be displaced by the project. Northern Cocle and western Colon provinces, which the consortium will study, have attracted relatively little attention from scholars in the past and thus the work will involve much original scholarship that will be of interest to more than just the canal's management.

Panama coffee online

On May 22 the Panama Specialty Coffee Association (SCAP) will hold an auction on the Internet, the first of its kind in the region. Eight lots of 25 60-kilogram sacks of the good stuff will be sold with the help of Royal Coffee, Inc, of Emeryville, California.

Rice growing subsidy

Despite allegations in the Legislative Assembly that the bill was designed to help a few wealthy PRD members, a $6.6 million subsidy for rice growers whose yields were reduced by last year's dry conditions in the central provinces has been approved by the legislature and signed by the president. The funds will be disbursed through the National Bank of Panama.

Social Security lends for jobs

The nation's Social Security system has lent the National Bank of Panama (BNP) $200 million from the retirement fund to be used to finance job-creating works, mostly by small and medium-sized businesses. The BNP will in turn lend the money to private banks, which will finance the actual projects. Though calls for more transparency than usual and politicians' warnings of corruption have followed the announcement, Social Security director Dr. Juan Jované says that the deal will earn interest for the retirement system and create jobs for people who will pay into Seguro Social.

CSS buys San Judas Tadeo Hospital

The Social Security Fund (CSS) is buying San Judas Tadeo Hospital for some $12.7 million. The system needs a new facility in the capital, particularly to expand its kidney dialysis services. San Judas Tadeo, like all of Panama's private health care facilities, has been hit with a serious decline in demand. The public system, on the other hand, now must serve many Panamanians who used to prefer private care but who can no longer afford it.

Arrests for phony seaman's papers

In the wake of the international scandal involving the sale of a Panamanian first mate's certification to an unqualified labor leader, the US Coast Guard has begun to inspect the papers of sailors on Panamanian-flag ships. So far an engine room chief and a ship captain have been detained for allegedly working in US waters with fraudulently obtained Panamanian credentials. Although those in charge of Panama's consulate in Manila where the illegal certificate sales took place have neither been fired nor arrested, after the US Coast Guard's actions Panama's National Maritime Authority attempted to show its concern about the issue by conducting surprise inspections at Coco Solo, in which a ship captain with legitimate Colombian credentials was arrested and fined for working on a Panamanian-flag ship and three crew members were detained for using false seaman's papers.

Fake health cards

Health Ministry inspectors have discovered the existence of counterfeit health cards and certificates for food handlers. People who work at restaurants or food markets, sell food on the streets or make their livings fishing or in slaughterhouses must be tested for tuberculosis, syphilis, HIV and other infectious diseases and must be found free of these maladies in order to be certified. The ministry is investigating to see whether the forgery was an inside job involving one or more of its employees, and is expected to step up inspections to find those who are using the phony certifications.

AIDS medicine prices down

An agreement between the US-based Merck pharmaceutical company and Panama's Social Security Fund has reduced the price of the four-drug "cocktails" that are the standard treatment to slow the spread of HIV infections that can lead to AIDS. Panama has some 24,000 AIDS or HIV patients, most of whom cannot afford $800 to $1,000 per month world market prices for the mixture of AZT, DDI. D4T and 3TC. Now their medicine will cost between $40 and $50 per month.

Rival construction union

The Labor Ministry has officially recognized The Authentic National Syndicate of Construction Industry Workers (SANTRAICO), a rival to the militant SUNTRACS construction workers' union. The new organization's leader, a former SUNTRACS member, denounces the established union for its leftist politics and militant tactics. Labor Minister Joaquín José Vallarino praised the new organization for breaking up what he called a monopoly. During the Endara administration there was a similar government attempt to supplant SUNTRACS with a more docile and conservative union, but that effort failed.

Colon-Panama bus syndicate sues

ULTRACOLPA, one of the rival bus syndicates offering service between Colon and Panama, has sued to overturn the law that requires it to operate out of the National Transportation Terminal at Albrook. The terminal, a monopoly created by law largely for the benefit of developer Mayor Alemán and his backers, obliged the syndicate to move from its own terminal in Calidonia and pay fees to Alemán's bus station. However, lawyers for ULTRACOLPA argue that the requirement to use the new terminal violates Panama's 1997 anti-monopoly law.

Gravel mining company pulls switcheroo

Gethsa Internacional SA, a sand and gravel mining company, has been obliged to cease its operations in Pacora's corregimiento of San Martin. The company had a government permit, but it was based on an environmental impact study for an entirely different site. It seems that officials at the Naitonal Environmental Authority, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the Comptroller General's office all failed to notice the switch. Not so with the neighbors, who had been assured that the site that the company was working was off-limits to such extractions.

TRICOM increases interest in Cellcom

TRICOM, a corporation headquartered in the Dominican Republic, has bought a controlling interest in Cellular Communications of Panama SA (Cellcom) for a little more than $8.1 million. The latter company has a concession to provide two-way radio communications services in Panama, and with technological advances the services can in many respects be comparable to those offered by Panama's cell phone concessionaires, Cable & Wireless and BellSouth. "The acquisition is a major step in the fulfillment of the company's regional expansion strategy and it will enable TRICOM to provide nationwide advanced mobile radio services in Panama, using Motorola's iDEN technology," TRICOM said in a press release. BellSouth and Cable & Wireless are crying foul, claiming that TRICOM is about to tread on the exclusive rights that they bought as part of the old INTEL public telecommunications monopoly's privatization.

Bolsa suspends companies

Panama's stock and bond exchange, the Bolsa de Valores de Panama, has suspended trading in seven companies, mostly because they have not filed their audits for the year 2000. Barred from trading are Banco Disa, Reaseguradora del Istmo, Geoinfo Internacional, Compañia Panameña de Credito, Tel Pan Communications, Alimentos y Superconcentrados and Hacienda La Istmeña.

Nets seized

La Prensa reports that during the recently ended annual shrimping moratorium authorities confiscated dozens of illegal trammel nets that had been set up in mangrove swamps along the Pacific coast in Cocle, Herrera and Los Santos. Those nets with illegally small meshes were destroyed, while the otherwise legal nets were held pending payment of fines for their illegal use.

Kobbe Beach up for bids

The Cabinet Council has approved a plan to offer a 23.8-hectare parcel of the former Fort Kobbe, including the beach and adjacent areas, for development as an eco-tourist attraction. Though there are mangroves and other green areas in the parcel and Kobbe Beach has traditionally been used for recreational purposes, few people in the tourism industry expect that the wildlife at and near the polluted beach will attract many foreign tourists.

also in this section: Peruvian investigators look here for Montesinos's and Fujimori's funds The latest issue of Business PanamaPanama's immigration laws Panama's immigration laws World Bank plots rural strategy here
©2001 The Panama News