she specializes in corporate law, commercial law, immigration and
intellectual property.
Salduba Building, Third Floor
53rd East Street, Urbanización Marbella
Panama City, Republic of Panama
507.269.2641 Phone
507.263.8079 Fax
mgarcia@quijano.com
www.quijano.com
Republic of Panama and the United
States of America have just ratified a
Free Trade Agreement for the purpose
of further developing and strengthening
bilateral trade structures and eliminating
tariff barriers between the two countries.
Trade agreements constitute liberal-
ization of trade of specific or of all kinds
of goods between signatory countries.
By becoming a signatory of this type of
agreement, countries gain a great reduc-
tion or complete elimination of existing
tariff and non-tariff barriers. In such
scenarios, to the extent determined in the
agreement, each country continues to be
sovereign in its own commercial policies
with the rest of the world.
The negotiations of this agreement
are the result of four presidential admin-
istrations in Panama, which involved
different political parties looking for
ways to strengthen and increase the com-
mercial relationship between Panama
and the U.S. Such negotiations involved
the presence of various sectors of the
private sector was constantly making
proposals for conditions of the agree-
ments approved and now ratified.
It is important to consider that this
Trade Agreement seeks the creation of
new opportunities of access to an im-
mensely important international market
for the Panamanian private sector, which
made important contributions during the
negotiations of the Agreement.
Together with the private sector in
Panama, the Panamanian Ministry of
Commerce and Industry installed a com-
mission called "National Commission of
International Commercial Negotiations,"
formed by government employees and
representatives of the private sector. This
Commission took part in all the meet-
ings held for submitting and analyzing
proposals during the negotiations of the
Agreement.
In addition to the above, the content
of the Agreement was submitted to the
academic sector, working class leaders,
professionals, independent citizens and
process these sectors were given the op-
portunity to submit their proposals and
objections during the negotiations.
It was clearly understood that the
entire society had to be considered at the
time of negotiating this type of Agree-
ment, since it was to affect positively,
negatively, directly and/or indirectly
every sector of the society. As a matter of
fact, from the year 2004 more than 350
consultations have been made for the
process of negotiating with the U.S.
As a result of the ratification of this
Agreement, Panama and the U.S. will
substantially reduce the tariffs applied to
the bilateral trade of goods, services and
investments, and it will promote higher
standards of protection of rights related
to intellectual property, electronic
products and related industries, customs,
as well as dealing with disputes, among
many other things.
It is said that the importance of the
Free Trade Agreement between Panama
and the U.S. is based on the impact the
U.S. has on the economic and commer-
cial transactions conducted in Pana-
manian territory. The U.S. is our most
important commercial partner. In 2010
the U.S. imported $2,518 million USD
from Panama and Panama exported $211
million USD to the U.S.
Panama and the United States