With the approval in the Cabinet Council of the expansion of the Global Logistics Free Zone, located in the border area of Paso Canoas in the province of ChiriquÃ, new investments of more than US$26 million and jobs will be generated that will mostly be taken advantage of by local labor.
Currently, the Global Logistic free zone was approved to be developed in an area of 3 hectares plus 4,831,23 square meters, so with the expansion, 22 hectares plus 1,883.11 square meters will be added, totaling an area of 25 hectares plus 6,714.34 square meters.
According to the Minister of Commerce and Industries (MICI), Federico Alfaro Boyd, the current area has been insufficient for the development of the ideal vocation of that free zone and the banking entities have expressed that the project is attractive and sustainable in a larger space, since their first client requests 30,000 square meters, thus taking over the capacity of the Free Zone.
“In turn, shipping lines have stated that they are interested in having a dry port there to cross-docking between containers, for which spaces of at least 10 hectares are required,” Alfaro Boyd explained.
In this administration, 53 new companies have been attracted and 10 new free zones have been approved with an initial investment commitment that exceeds US$170 million.