In Panama, the Cortizo administration has announced that it does not plan to sign new trade agreements, as what the country currently needs is to “strengthen its exporters.”

Representatives of the Ministry of Commerce and Industries informed that until the exportable offer of Panama is strengthened, they will begin to advance in the negotiation of commercial treaties with other countries.

Juan Carlos Sosa, Vice Minister of Foreign Trade, explained to Prensa.com that “… Before moving forward and talking about treaties, we really need to prepare our exporters, have well-certified plants and keep looking for those business opportunities for Panamanian products.”

With this decision, the Free Trade Agreement negotiations with China, which reached the fifth round, would be blocked.

See “Panama – China FTA: Fifth Round of Negotiations”

In this regard, Sosa said that “… Panama will continue to work on achieving export protocols to the Asian country of new processing plants for beef, pork, chicken and shrimp. Relations with China are excellent and besides export we are promoting technology and logistics projects. The trade issue with China has not stopped, but the issue of the FTA will be seen little by little.”

Wei Qiang, China’s ambassador to Panama, said in mid-September that the Asian country is still interested in negotiating a high-level free trade agreement.