Wow, what a year here in Panama and I can’t wait to see what 2020 brings. Family get together and parties are winding down and thank goodness too! Before we leave the subject and get on with where I think Panama is headed, I would like to share with you some highlights of our little Christmas party this year.
Susie always starts the invites with a good group of friends which generally morphs into a huge party, this year we had over 95 people attend.
We have come to love this annual celebration to enjoy friends and family and be grateful …..Dishes to share were welcome and appreciated ! Open bar and live music for all to enjoy! No gifts but we did have donation jars for local charities ! We went all out starting with Mr. and Mrs. Claus greeting guests as they arrived.
My associates joined me in the fun with our company President, Rolando and our Super Associate Rachel ( Congrats on 6 more deals this month!!) Great team!! And of course, the go-to girls in red, Susie and Sandy!!
Edgar and his friend provided music again this year and they are two of the best guitarists in Panama. We had a professional photographer, Patrick Reynolds set up in our master bedroom to take couples pictures as keepsakes and our Son Adrian who is a professional bartender tended bar, taking drink orders. Food was overflowing our huge dining table and island counter with everyone bringing a signature dish to share. I added a 13 pound spiral cut honey ham with fresh baked fruit which went very quickly too.
Everyone had a great time again this year and Susie is slowly recovering from the event!! Thanks to her for pulling off another great time with friends.
PANAMA 2020 and On
I read a lot of prognostications, most of which I think are wishful thinking, like our new government tourism authority predicting a 10% growth in Tourism just because they are throwing $20 Million into an “international program”. Hopefully a little more brilliant than the last one where someone decided to say “Panama is not for tourists, it is for adventurers!” Tourism has been a disaster in the last 2 years so we really have only one direction to go and I believe it will go up.
I do know that the fundamentals of Panama changed with The Panama Papers where our last administration spent all his energy placating the OECD, the US government and every other body that pointed fingers at Panama even together most of the illicit activity occurred outside our country. Why not clean up the money laundering Delaware corporations? So the do-nothing administration hurt Panama but not as much as the banking system trying to go put itself out of business with over stepping their requirements to be compliant with the new government banking regulations. A lot of companies left Panama including Sun Casinos who invested over $120 Million in the former Trump Tower. They have a lot clients from around the world that are known as “whales”. So Mr Whale wants to play and sends $1 Million to Panama so he can have a good time and gamble. Then after blowing $500K he send the rest back home when he leaves. The banks in Panama freaked our and said that they cannot be involved with the perception of money laundering. So, Sun shut down entirely and left Panama. Where did they go – Chile where the government is friendly and the banking system is far superior to Panama. We visited one of their casinos when were in Chile in October and they are huge!!
So, one pillar has fallen and I do not know the answer to it’s recovery but I think that will take more than one year. Another Pillar and a very big deal here was the Colon Free Trade Zone, the second largest in the world. The way goods are sold has changed a lot over the last 10 years and The Zone got left behind as it is really not needed when you can get 2 day delivery from Amazon on anything and it ships to Panama the same week!!
Pillar number three is the Panama Canal which has been doing extremely well now 3 years after it’s expansion. Most of that revenue circulates within the government and the public here does not see it.
All of this affected our main driver of growth – Construction and Real Estate. While we over built again, that too will change but in the meantime, I am reminded that with Crisis comes Opportunity. That said, we have a deep buyer’s market here right now and while it has been a tough couple of years, we see signs that that too is changing. There are still a lot of big discounts in the City and our village of Boquete as well. I have been in real estate for 4o years, 10 of which involved properties in Panama and when the market does really get going a lot of people are going to wished that they had been here and taken advantage of the discounted real estate deals around. In Boquete a lot of agents will tell you things are great and you can sell your property for a big price because they offer the MLS service. Wrong on both counts. There is a lot of discounting going on behind the scenes and the MLS does not account for more that 10% of sales in Panama. We have a team that can offer you rental opportunities and agricultural investments. We also seek out the real deals being offered in the market and would not hesitate to make an offer on a home that might otherwise seem to be too aggressive.
My eyes were opened wide after visiting Chile as the country erupted in violence and while Panama is far behind Chile economically, we do have something here that is the glue that binds our country – STABILITY! While we were in Chile, I saw violence, death and the destruction of a huge amount of their infrastructure. Even while Panama has its protests while we explore changing our constitution, you will never see one Panamanian destroy our Metro System like they did in Chile. Panama also has a wide gap between the rich and poor but the poor are doing better and poverty has shrunk a lot in the last 10 years. Our middle class is enjoying significant growth as well as people earn more and spend more. Our new malls and stores continue to grow and we now have more goods and services that we have ever had. That will be the backbone of future growth in Panama.
Our main hub, Panama City will bring us out of our malaise with new infrastructure planned and under way for 2020. An example of this can be found on Amador Causeway where will see the opening of a new convention center and a cruise terminal which will help with tourism and businesses coming to Panama. We have a new bridge over the canal in the works and always more roadway construction. Our China relationship could payoff big time next year is the bullet train from Panama to Costa Rica gets going among other planned projects.
People all over the world are seeking STABILITY and want to leave behind the hate we see in the US, a Europe over run with immigrants and the chaos in Latin American Countries which continues to spread. We saw country after country crushed under the weight of communist/socialist regimes which destroyed Venezuela and Nicaragua. Argentina continues to struggle and the new administration has a lot of people worried. Same with Colombia.
So, Panama will keep its doors open wide and welcome people and businesses that seek out STABILITY like we have to offer here in Panama. Come visit us in 2020 and see if Panama works for you.
