business

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Free Trade Agreement "divulged" --- except for what it says
Odebrecht officially takes over Colon-Panama toll road project
Business & Economy Briefs

What's missing here?

photos and text by Eric Jackson

The Torrijos administration is again going full-blast on a "divulgación" (publication) campaign, this time for a US-Panama Free Trade Agreement whose negotiation was announced just before this past Christmas.

The problem is, so far neither government has released the text of the agreement. President Torrijos told us that the thing was in Spanish to begin with, but then after many complaints about its unavailability to the public the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said that it was in the process of being translated into Spanish. Now US sources are reporting that the American side is telling Panama that in order to be approved by the new Congress that has come under the Democrats' control several points are going to have to be renegotiated.

So what's the point of going around "publicizing" a document that's not published, which is moreover not going to be the subject of a public referendum but instead will be rubber stamped by a PRD-controlled National Assembly?

One of them is to line the pockets of those close to the president. His father in law is the founder of this country's ad cartel, members of which get a cut of the action in this kind of government spending. And then businesses featured in this particular ad campaign get a bit of state-subsidized publicity in the process.

(So, looking at the full page newspaper ad below, one wonders if rancher Emilio Espino is any relation to President Martín Torrijos Espino --- and what percentage of all businesses featured in this ad campaign are headed by members of the ruling PRD or its junior coalition partner the Partido Popular.)