Future looks bright for Panama

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/5733774/Future-looks-bright-for-Panama.html



Panama has a slice of everything and something for everyone, says Richard McColl.



He explains why the future looks bright for Panama.



By Richard McColl
Published: 4:45PM BST 05 Jul 2009

There is no mistaking where we are, soaring above the Central American isthmus and over the Bridge of the Americas – an ironwork structure that from the air looks as if it is a giant's clasp fastening North and South America together either side of the Panama Canal.

Our plane banks up and over an endless line of waiting tankers before catching a glimpse of Panama City's exponential upward – or even skyward – growth. For the centre city now resembles a mirrored glass complex of clustered stalagmites, although you'll hear estate agents and residents claiming that the city has a "Manhattan" skyline.

Panama is booming, in fact it has been booming for some time now. Those who missed the boat in Miami and found Costa Rica inadequate and too costly, set their sights on this sliver of a country that since the strongman Manuel Noriega was deposed in 1989 has been a model of stability.

Many expat retired people have also been enticed into investing in property here because of Panama's easy access to both oceans, abundance of flora and fauna, by a favourable climate – which conveniently lies south of the hurricane belt – and most importantly the infrastructure.

"Panama is in a privileged location, multinational firms are moving their Americas headquarters here, Panama City has all the benefits of a first world city and Tocumen International airport has daily flights to 42 countries," says Jaime Figueroa, of estate agents Panama All in One.

Sitting in the shade of a jacaranda tree in a handsome plaza in the colonial Casco Viejo quarter of the city, my reflections on Panama's history as key to Spanish imperialism in South and central America are interrupted by a raucously loud Blackberry device.

Carefully I cast a glance over my shoulder to see a fiftysomething North American woman, dressed impeccably, sipping tonic water sitting before a pile of immaculate office files. There's no doubt about it, she's an estate agent. And by the sound of things business is good. Could this be the agent who brokered the deal for Sean Connery or for Mel Gibson in Panama's current hot spot, the Azuero Peninsula, an axe-head shaped parcel of land in Panama's southwest jutting out into the Pacific, or perhaps she is sweetening the deal for prospective clients Angelina and Brad on the Caribbean's Bocas del Toro region? Apparently Pierce Brosnan is fond of Panama as well since he can move about for the most part unrecognised.

Brian Requarth, managing director of VivaReal (www.VivaReal.net), an English language online property site, says: "We saw Panama as a key market as there are a growing number of investors drawn to the area. The country has provided some excellent incentives to attract foreign investors to the region and the strategic location really makes Panama a bridge into South America."

These incentives include a conservative banking industry and a stable economy, the balboa is pegged to the US dollar. In addition to this, the Panamanian authorities have waived property taxes on people investing in Panama for a period of 20 years as well as not taxing earnings made elsewhere.

Celebrities aside, Panama gained some notoriety in recent years from "canoe man" John Darwin and his wife Anne, the debt-ridden Hartlepool couple who were so enamoured by the county that they staged John's death to invest the life insurance payout here.

Intending to set up a business, they bought a £200,000 lot in Escobal, which is just a few kilometres outsite the run down and dangerous city of Colon on the Caribbean coast, which is an hour's drive from downtown Panama City and the location of the famous Zona Libre (Tax-Free Zone). Similar lots are selling up fast, partly due to the publicity surrounding the Darwins causing a mini surge in tourism.

One assumes that the Darwins did a thorough reconnaissance trip around Panama before settling on Escobal, shunning the cooler climes of the mountain town of Boquete, steering clear of the Miami-like Panama City, staying away from the busy Caribbean islands of the Bocas del Toro and obviously staying to the North of the troublesome Darien area.

In short, Panama has a slice of everything and something for everyone. With a new government elected in May that is ambitious and overtly friendly and open to foreign investors, the future looks brighter and brighter for Panama.

"As soon as the United States was attacked on 9/11," says Figueroa, "Panama saw an upsurge in interest in people looking for first-world amenities, warm weather and security, and they found it here."

I won't be found criticising the United States for their role in the forming of modern day Panama – I am benefiting from it right now. Rather than check into a soulless multinational establishment in the downtown mayhem and rush hour traffic of El Cangrejo or Marbella, I have decided to stay in Balboa, the heart of the former Canal Zone.

Here the streets are wide, a breeze takes the edge off the stuffy mornings, people still tend to their lawns and there is an appreciation of personal space. A basketball net adorns the eaves of a garage door and it is hard to imagine that I am anywhere else but in a parallel version of Americana, certainly not in Latin America.

Perhaps the only difference is that over breakfast on the terrace, looking out at the exotic birds of paradise I can make out a family of coati scavenging for food near the bottom of the garden and up above a pair of toucans sing their morning tunes, whistling through their colourful beaks.