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The National Bank of Panama is now circulating 200,000 new silver dollars bearing the likeness of Mireya Moscoso. It’s purportedly a special centennial year coin issue, but anti-corruption activist Enrique Montenegro considers it unseemly political propaganda and complains that the bank is forcing retirees to take payment in the coins, which a lot of Panamanians would rather not use. The Mireya dollar is the first Panamanian coin to feature the image of a living politician.

“Growth is picking up and the government is bringing the fiscal situation under control,” Credit Suisse - First Boston analyst Jan Dehn says of the Panamanian economy. He noted that Panamanian banks that had been investing their money overseas are now lending more for the Panamanian economy and that external factors upon which much of our commerce depends are also looking better. “Several important structural problems are adversely affecting the economy due to years of neglect of reform,” Dehn warned. The reforms he’d like to see are changes in the pension system, reduced government spending and tax code changes.

Countries that maintain Panama on financial blacklists will get reciprocal discrimination, the government vows. Instructions have gone out that in all government contracts going out for bids, companies based in Spain, France, Italy, Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela, all of which impose special fees and delays for financial transactions involving Panama, will not be allowed to bid. The order applies not only in the government ministries, but also to the autonomous agencies like the Panama Canal Authority and ARI.

The controversial legislation to make the former Howard Air Force Base into a “Special Economic Zone,” in which export- oriented businesses would get certain tax breaks, exemptions from labor laws and the ability to import their managerial staff from abroad, looks like it may get past the Legislative Assembly before its session ends at midnight on New Year’s Eve, even though assembly president Jacobo Salas is against it. As this issue was uploaded the proposal had gained committee approval and the legislature’s plenary voted to give it “notorious emergency” status --- that is, to put it the head of the agenda. The measure is opposed by the Colon Free Zone merchants, who claim that it’s just a competing import/export zone that gets to compete unfairly with fewer labor code restrictions and other advantages. In the bargaining in committee, Howard lost its duty-free import/export center characteristic, except where there’s work done here on the products that get shipped out. However, the Free Zone merchants are now demanding “equalization” --- that is, that they’ll get every legal exemption and tax break that the contemplated Howard investors will get. Despite the labor law provisions, a number of unions are supporting the proposal because it would create new jobs.

A plan that would give people and enterprises that owe Seguro Social money and opportunity to pay part of their debts (at least 10 percent) and make payment arrangements for the rest by April 30 and thus avoid the payment of interest and penalties was approved on first reading in the legislature on December 18. It’s opposed by most of the labor movement, supported by most business organizations and likely to be passed into law. This law would affect The Panama News, which is one of the more than 15,000 businesses that have fallen into arrears with Seguro.

Is it a costly and demagogic election-year giveaway? Is it a crooked little scheme with the beneficiaries’ names all but written on it? Is it a reasoned response to a prolonged stagnation of the Panamanian industrial sector? Is it a whizbang to send a message or distract attention in the course of free trade talks with the United States? The proposed industrial fomentation law now being considered before the legislature would subsidize 35 percent of the cost of a plant’s expansion and a rebate of 20 percent for the purchase of national raw materials. The ministry of Commerce and industry thinks that the law would involve about $40 to $50 million in subsidies per year over eight years. Among the groups opposing the subsidy is the Panamanian Business Executives Association (APEDE), which questions the proposal’s efficacy for promoting industry and argues that the state can’t afford the expense.

The Panama Canal is breaking all revenue records, and also putting more money into the national government’s coffers. In Fiscal 2002 the canal transferred $88.8 million in profits to the national treasury, but this recently finished 2003 fiscal year the figure went up to $106.8 million.

The Panama Canal Authority has opened a new $10 million visitors center at the Miraflores Locks, complete with a new observation deck and displays and models of how the canal works.

As this issue was uploaded a residents’ and interns’ strike at Colon’s Manuel Amador Guerrero Hospital was into its third week. The young doctors walked out over understaffing and shortages in medicines and supplies on December 2.

After the current ad consortium and several challengers were all ruled unqualified to do this season’s scaled-back (by ten percent) foreign ad campaign to promote Panamanian tourism. The bidding process, which was called off because of the mass disqualification, was supposed to be rescheduled before the start of peak tourist season, but the Ministry of Economy and Finance has delayed the approval needed to conduct another round of bidding.

On December 10 flights in and out of Tocumen Airport were suspended for about eight hours while the runway light system was out. It was apparently a problem with the light sensors that automatically turn the lights on when darkness falls. Because it was a problem with the airport and not the airline, American Airlines is sending passengers with claims based on the delay to the Panamanian government for redress. Tocumen Airport was recently devolved to a semi-autonomous authority, with which the current administration’s political appointees will be able to keep their jobs after the Mireyistas leave office next September.

After a long series of protests, including some angry street blockages, the Ministry of Government and Justice has decided in favor of Colon bus drivers and held that buses licensed in Panama province and hired by the tour guide companies may not work Colon’s cruiser ports. Buses must be licensed to work in Colon to engage in this business in the province. That still may not get a piece of the action for many of the protesting Colon bus drivers, but it does enhance their chances.

At Quebrada Lopez, north of Sabanitas in Colon province, a 700-meter section of one side of the Trans-Isthmian Highway has sunk. The problem was caused by water seeping under the road for a long time and washing away the roadbed during heavy rains in early December. Traffic has been detoured to the other side of the road while MOP waits until dry season to do the repairs.

ProFuturo, one of the two insurance conglomerates that’s angling for a bigger share of the Panamanian pension fund management business, has one partner fewer. Citibank has sold its stake in the enterprise to partners Banco General, Banco Continental and the Assa insurance company. The move is part of Citibank’s general retreat from the Panamanian market.

With but a few shopping days before Christmas when these words were written, retail customers on Avenida Central and Via España seemed fewer in number than usual, and a number of merchants in those areas concur that it has been a slow Christmas season this year. The problem with this year’s holiday shopping season is that although the national economy is growing again, we haven’t recovered much of the ground we lost in the long slide from about the end of 1998 until about the middle of 2002, and that’s directly related to the amount that’s available in society for Christmas spending. Those particular shopping areas --- especially Central, on and around which the traffic jams have been getting unbelievable --- may also be losing business to other commercial districts.

On December 19 at Cerro Patacon prosecutors destroyed 5 million pirate compact discs and a half-million pirate video games that were waylaid in this country, apparently en route to Brazil. Two Taiwanese men are wanted in connection with the seizure earlier this year, which in turn was a part of an international investigation of a pirate ring run by Asians and operating out of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Thailand, Malaysia, Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil and Panama.

Also on Cerro Patacon, on December 18, some 8,000 Christmas trees were burned. The trees, which came from Canada, carried insects that caused agricultural inspectors to order their fumigation with methyl bromide. That made the trees brown and smelly and unsuitable for sale, so the trees’ importers, Hermanos Gago, had the things taken to the city dump and burned. In Panama the usual day to burn Christmas trees is January 6.





Also in this section:
Business & Economy Briefs
Gambling displaces banking on this corner of the financial district
Jované and community and labor leaders ponder neoliberalism
ACP announces watershed policy

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