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business & economy
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Business & Economy Briefs
Singapore Technologies Aerospace moves into Howard We are seeing the first fruits of the Panama - Singapore free trade pact now that Singapore Technologies Aerospace Ltd has taken over four hangars at the old Howard Air Force Base. The company maintains and repairs aircraft, and one of their biggest clients is Fed Ex. COPA Airlines now intends to use their services here as well.
No more private foundations with public funds Comptroller General Dani Kuzniecky has decreed that public employees may not create or otherwise participate in private foundations that are managed with public funds. That abuse was one of the Moscoso kleptocracy's favorite scams, about which several criminal and civil investigations are still pending. Earlier the government of Taiwan, whose aid to Panama during the Moscoso years was largely given to private foundations run by public officials, and largely disappeared, had announced a policy of no longer giving public aid through private entities.
Tocumen arrivals up According to the government's IPAT tourism bureau arrivals at Tocumen Airport for the first six months of 2006 are up some 19.7 percent over the same period of 2005. The record of 597,956 arrivals reflects major increases in both traditional tourism and the number of foreigners who live here but travel in and out of the country. The boom also also generated smaller increases in the numbers of people entering the country by sea and by land from Costa Rica.
Panama's top trade negotiator quits Estif Aparicio, who had been heading Panama's team in the postponed free trade talks with the United States, has quit to take a job with New York's Sullivan & Cromwell corporate law firm. It is expected that the trade talks will resume next January.
Pakistan takes Panama's side in WTO case Panama has another Asian backer in its dispute with Colombia over restrictions on shoes and textiles that pass through the Colon Free Zone. The matter is pending before the World Trade Organization and a lot of Asian countries that export to Latin America and the Caribbean through Colon have lost business because of the restrictions and have joined Panama as co-plaintiffs. The latest country to do so is Pakistan.
One dead, one missing in ship's sinking The National Maritime Authority is investigating the August 11 sinking of the Panamanian-registered freighter Dayana some 120 miles off the coast of Colon. Thirteen members of the crew were rescued by the US Coast Guard two days later, suffering from dehydration and exposure, and in the lifeboat there was one dead sailor. Another member of the Indian-nationality crew was missing. The ship's sailing patent had expired and the vessel had been found so unseaworthy as to only have a permit to proceed from the Dominican Republic to Venezuela for drydock repairs. However, it was carrying a load of scrap metal from the DR to Colon when it sank
Former CZ properties going back on the market After a pause of some months during which the functions of the former Interoceanic Regional Authority (ARI) were transferred to the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) and most of the old ARI workers were shed, on August 28 auctions of real estate in the former Canal Zone will resume. The first properties to go on the MEF auction block are in La Boca, the Curundu industrial area and the former Fort Clayton.
Judge suspends latest C&W rate increase Cable & Wireless Panama has for many years tried many tactics to force Internet users to use its services in preference to those of competitors. (One of those, some years back, was to block connections from users of C&W Internet services to Panamanian websites that didn't use C&W as their web host, one of which is and was The Panama News, and to tell people who complained that this publication had gone out of business.) The latest trick was a rate change to limit the number of local charge minutes a customer could use in dial-up connections with other Internet service providers to 2,500 per month, notwithstanding whether such customers have an unlimited local calling plan. The rate change was approved by the National Public Services Authority, but has been prohibited by Superior Tribunal Judge Jorge Isaac Escobar. The company might appeal.
Petaquilla fined $30 grand for environmental offense The Petaquilla mining company promoted by former Cocle governor Richard Fifer has been hit with a $30,000 fine for road-building and mine exploration activities along the San Juan River in western Colon province without having submitted an environmental impact study or getting a permit for those activities. The administrative action was taken by the National Environmental Authority (ANAM) after downstream neighbors complained of the silt runoff from Fifer's operation. The company might appeal against the fine in the courts if its chooses to do so.
Strike at Red Frog Members of the SUNTRACS construction workers' union walked off the job at the Red Frog Beach resort on Isla Bastamientos in Bocas del Toro on August 2 and as these briefs were written the dispute, largely over economic issues, continued unresolved. The union has complained that the developers have brought in strikebreakers, which is illegal in a strike recognized by the Ministry of Labor as this one is.
Santa Clara beach fence removed The Anton municipal government sent in a crew to tear down a fence erected on the public beach at Santa Clara. The fence was another episode in a long-running attempt by the Fonseca family to privatize the beach, public access to the beach and other public spaces in Santa Clara.
Artisans' merchandise confiscated On August 15 there was another round in the long-running dispute between vendors and city hall, when the corregidor of San Felipe confiscated the goods of nine members of Artesanos Unidos del Casco Viejo. The city cites a municipal decree against street vendors in the Casco Viejo. The artisans cite a national law permitting artisans to sell their products anywhere in the country, and the fact that their challenge to the city is now pending before the Supreme Court. The artisans were particularly incensed because they were given no receipts for their confiscated works and thus they fear that even if they win their legal dispute it's likely that their things will disappear.
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