Panama, Colombia, and Costa Rica are three Latin American countries with observer’s status in the of Asia – Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC). Today they jointly announced their intent to join this group, which is poised to become one of the biggest common markets in the world.
The stage of Panama’s presentation was a seminar on business in Latin America organized by the government of Singapore, host country of the Summit of the heads of state of APEC, which will be held next weekend in this small and prosperous Asian country.
Present in the seminar were, the Colombian chancellor of Foreign affairs, Jaime Bermúdez Merizalde; the Secretary of Commerce Exterior de Costa Rica, Marco Vinicio Ruiz, and his counterpart of Commerce and Industry of Panama, Roberto Henríquez.
Singapore hosts the annual meeting of the leaders of 21 economies , which represent 40 % per cent of the world population, more than half of the global Gross National Product and 44 % of the commerce. These, of course are huge numbers with great potential for Panama should it be accepted in this vast market.
Panama, Costa Rica and Colombia entrust that APEC will lift an existing moratorium and accept them as new members, in next year’s summit that will take place in the Japanese city of Yokohama. The Panamanian representative emphasized that Panama “wants to demonstrate its big interest in being accepted in the APEC as member”.
The only Latin-American members of APEC at the moment are Chile, Mexico and Peru. The decision to lift the moratorium, imposed in 1997 and renewed in the summit of Sídney ten years later, is implemented by means of consensus between 21 members of the group, currently divided between those that claim that is necessary to give priority to the integration and those who argue for enlargement and increase of the markets.
APEC is consisted by Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, South Korea, the United States, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan and Vietnam.
Our Most Popular Posts:
- New Panama Tax Code Overview
- Law 23 Is Dead. Long Live Law 80 (Proposed Law Project 71)
- IRS Establishes Criminal Investigation Offices In Panama City
- Panama Pensionado Property Tax Freeze
- Panama Property Traps
Visitors Who Read This Post Also Read:
0 Comments.