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Business & Economy Briefs
Seguro amnesty: no pay plans, part payments
The terms of the moratorium on fines, interest and late fees for Seguro Social are less generous than originally contemplated. As initially proposed, those with debts to the social security system could pay as little a 10 percent down and make a payment arrangement, but as it was passed and is being implemented only those who pay the full amount owed by April 30 will be eligible to benefit from the elimination of the extra charges.
Mireya signs industrial subsidy
Industrialists who qualify stand to get more than $300 million in subsidies over the next eight years, in the event that a law that President Moscoso signed on February 4 is continued after she leaves. The vote on the subsidies split the legislature along its usual recent party lines and the measure gets both praise and condemnation from various business sectors.
American consulate moving
The US consulate is moving from its current premises a block away from the embassy to more spacious and more easily defended Building 520 at Clayton. With a few exceptions like the services to US citizens unit and the folks who assist federal retirees with their benefits, consular services will be cut back during the move, between March 2 and 11. To get a US visa during the interim, application must be made to the American consulate in Costa Rica.
Students weak in math and science
While the admissions tests for some schools at the University of Panama seem to be easy enough for most applicants, El Panama America reports that only about 17 percent of applicants are passing the tests to get into such hard science-oriented departments as pharmacy or veterinary medicine. It’s but one more dot in a dismal picture. For several years now another key indication of math and science education in Panama’s high schools, the scores students get on the entrance exams for Panama Technological University, have also been disappointingly low.
Riba Smith expanding
The best supermarkets for gringo food --- stocking things like the best Campbell’s soup collection, Italian sausage and fresh cranberries around Thanksgiving --- are about to expand. Riba Smith, which has for decades done business on the Transistmica a block north of Via Brasil and in a smaller Marbella locale, will be opening two new stores, one in the Punta Pacifica development that’s going in at the old Paitilla Airport and the other farther east at the Costa del Este development project.
SENACYT weighs in against phone tax change
As this issue was being uploaded she hadn’t signed it, and her science and technology advisors don’t want her to do so. The National Secretariat of Science, Technology and Innovation (SENACYT) has asked President Moscoso to veto the telephone tax changes recently approved in a special legislative session. The $1 tax on international phone calls will be replaced by a 12 percent tax, which will also apply to Internet phones. SENACYT believes that the more expensive Internet telephony will impede communications between universities here and abroad and will thus retard the nation’s technological development. The proposed measure is getting a certain amount of international attention, as this is one of those infrequent and much-resisted attempts to tax the Internet.
Windmill farm turned down again
The National Environmental Authority (ANAM) has for a second time rejected an application by Generadora Electrica de Panama, SA (GEPSA) to build and operate a windmill farm on a Chiriqui ridge that’s part of the Fortuna forest reserve. Part of the opposition comes from other electric generating companies, but the application was turned down because of deforestation, erosion and bird kill concerns.
Shrimp growers want IADB forbearance
Five shrimp farmers raising crustaceans in 300 hectares of ponds in Aguadulce’s El Roble corregimiento are asking for a five-month moratorium on loan repayments to the Inter-American Development Bank, as flooding along the Santa Maria River last October swept away many of their shrimp and contaminated their ponds. The farmers are member of the local shrimp growers’ industry association, the Panamanian Shrimp Producers Association (APROPAC).
New labor woes in banana co-op
When Chiquita Brands agreed to sell its Puerto Armuelles Fruit Company (PAFCO) operations to its workers there may have been some hopes that an era of labor strife had ended. However, the company was transferred to the SITRACHILCO union, which constituted itself as the COOSEMUPAR multiple services co-op and has not allowed the much larger group of men and women who work at the devolved farms to become members. The sale of PAFCO’s assets to the co-op was backed by the government, and one condition of the deal was that there wouldn’t be discrimination among the former PAFCO workers. Thus the Labor Ministry stepped in to warn that all the banana workers have a right to join the co-op. Underlying the entire situation is a weak banana market that has prompted pay cuts on the order of 40 percent at the co-op.
Auto dealers report sales up
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