AMCHAM Committed to October 1st Implementation Date of FTA

Thursday, March 22, 2012 - 14:21
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Panama City, Panama-- MARCH 22, 2012 – AMCHAM President Luis Laguerre met with representatives from both the United States and Panama in Washington, D.C. last week to discuss the details of the implementation of the U.S.-Panama Free Trade Agreement.  The meeting took place at the offices of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), where Laguerre met with Patrick Kilbride, Western Hemisphere Affairs Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Also present at the meeting were representatives from the private sector with interests in Panama.  The meeting was timely, given that Panama’s Minister of Commerce Ricardo Quijano and Vice Minister Diana Salazar were already in Washington to meet with US Trade Representatives to discuss next steps in the implementation of the Free Trade agreement between the two countries.

 

IDB has been contracted to work with both Colombia and Panama on the specifics of the implementation process, including legislative changes that both countries need to enact before the FTA’s of the respective countries with the United States can be put into effect.

 

Laguerre emerged from the meetings optimistic that the team can meet the tentative date for completion of October 1, 2012.  He said, “AMCHAM expressed our commitment to collaborate with the public sector in facilitating the implementation process, serving as a sounding board for the various legislative proposals that will need to be introduced for the trade agreement to move forward.”

 

Minister Quijano announced last week that Panama and the United States had tentatively set October 1stas the implementation date for the bilateral free trade agreement, after having met earlier with U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk.  The announcement was made on exactly the same day that the U.S.-Korea FTA took effect.