Panamanian Ambassador Aram Cisneros’ two-and-half-year service in Korea has been full of rare experiences partly because, unlike other diplomats, his assignment here had a single-minded focus on business diplomacy.
Cisneros was called upon to serve in this key posting to attract as many ship owners as possible to register their newly constructed vessels under the flag of Panama amid a deep recession in the global maritime industry.
The demanding job required him to meet with ship owners frequently, and this consequently allowed him to explore several “eye-opening experiences” in Korean culture which other diplomats hardly get to experience.
Dealing with his target group obligated him to drink soju frequently with yukhoe, a side dish of raw chopped beef.
Now the dish is one of Cisnerous’ favorite Korean foods.
Networking hours with heavy drinking businesspeople usually continued deep into the night as they explored the first, second and third rounds of drinking.
Hangovers and headaches were part of his life in Korea.
Despite this, Cisneros said the drinking culture didn’t bother him at all, adding that he was a trained drinker.
“I’m quite good at drinking. My father had taught me to do it responsibly since I was 13 years old,” Cisneros said during a recent interview with The Korea Times at his office in Seoul.
“Soju is part of Korean culture. Business is done among people and being able to understand people’s culture is the key to establishing and maintaining business relations.”
June 30 is his last day at the Embassy of Panama in Seoul.
After that, he will head back to Panama for a private sector job.
During his time in Seoul, Cisneros often visited the nearby temple Hwagye-sa in northern Seoul for long hours of discussion with Buddhist monk Jio to quench his thirst for the spiritual path that he did not take.
“I spoke with him about Buddhism both in theory and its applications in the real world. As a Christian, I was curious about other spiritual paths that are different from the one under which I was raised,” he said. His latest visit to the temple was last winter.
Key posting
Cisneros also squeezed hours of study on Confucianism, shamanism, the Korean War and the late leader Park Chung-hee into his busy daily schedule to have a better understanding of the host country.
Korea is one of the top four foreign postings for Panamanian diplomats as the economy is heavily reliant on income from ship registration.
The other top postings are Japan, Singapore and Greece, because all of them have strong ship-building industries.
Income earned from ship registration accounts for approximately 11 percent of the gross domestic product of the Central American country.
The significance of ship registration in the Panamanian economy partly explains why Cisneros and all his predecessors were political appointees close to president.
Cisneros made it a rule to visit to ship owners every month. He routinely visited five or six ship owners based in Seoul or Busan, and talked with them about their difficulties or impediments associated with ship registration services.
One of his staff said the Panamanian ambassador tried hard to make ship owners’ voices heard by writing memos to his government with a set of recommendations to fix impediments.
The Panamanian ambassador also launched his own “customer satisfaction service” by awarding a certificate of gratitude in person in return for ship owners choosing Panama as a country of ship registry.
Biz accumen
He made such efforts because the number of vessels built fell sharply year after year as demand for ships has been very low since the 2008 global financial crisis.
Such a tough environment made the Panamanian ambassador’s job extremely difficult.
Cisneros noted that global competition in ship registration was another tough challenge he had to deal with all during his years in Korea.
“Although Panama is a global leader in ship registration, we are not alone in the global ship registration market. There are competitors,” he said.
According to data compiled by United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in 2010, Panama topped the ship registry ranking by world’s registered tonnage with 22.63 percent.
Liberia came in second with 11.14 percent, followed by the Marshal Islands with 6.1 percent.
Over 9,000 ships from all over the world are registered under the flag of Panama.
“To keep our customers happy, the basic thing is to make sure our customers believe that we are keeping our promises,” he said.
The tough business environment, meanwhile, caused Cisneros to be a demanding boss at the embassy.
“I am a perfectionist and never satisfied. I know it’s hard to have a boss like me and for that reason I thank all my staff at the embassy. They had to travel all the way to Busan frequently,” he said.
The envoy said he should have worked harder to hone his Korean language skills, adding this is the only regret that he has regarding his service here.
