Panama

Since 1914 the Panama Canal has been a key conduit for international trade. Connecting 144 routes and reaching 1700 ports in 160 countries, the man-made waterway has positioned the country as a transportation and logistics hub in the Americas.

At a cost of $5.25bn, the Panama Canal expansion programme is the largest single investment in the country’s history. Approved by national referendum in October 2006, the project will see the addition of a third lane of traffic to the existing two-lane canal.

In preparation for the opening of the third lane of the Panama Canal, a new toll structure was approved in April 2015 by the Cabinet Council. This followed more than a year of informal consultations with industry stakeholders, an open call for comments and a public hearing, with interested parties given an opportunity to provide feedback. Jorge Luis Quijano, the CEO of...

The overall unemployment rate in Panama increased from 4.1% in 2013 to 4.8% in 2014. This included 3.5% (or 61,616 people) who were openly unemployed and an additional 1.4% (or 24,289 people) assessed as being in the “hidden unemployed”, according to figures published by the National Statistics Agency. Nearly two-thirds of the absolute increase in the number of jobless...

Panama is a small and open economy in which investment is normally well in excess of savings. In 2014 the current account deficit amounted to some $5.3bn, or 12% of GDP, according to the IMF.

Diversified across various sectors, over recent years Panama’s economy has been notable for its resilience in face of problems in key trading partners such as Venezuela and comparatively rapid growth in a regional context. In 2014 Panama’s GDP was $43.8bn, while its per capita income reached $11,147, according to the IMF. Panama’s real GDP expanded by 7.8% annually over...