Panama is just a four-hour flight away from Atlanta, a logistics powerhouse whose fate is tied directly to Georgia’s via vital Pacific trade routes that reach the East Coast through its storied canal.
Despite its importance, however, promoters of the Central American nation often face blank stares: Audiences are often more likely to know Panama for its famous boxers and former dictators than for business opportunities.
But the country has a story to tell, and it’s about more than transiting through what a famous book about the Panama Canal called “The Path Between the Seas.”
“We go around preaching Panama, so the world starts to want to know,” said ProPanama Chief Administrator Gerardo G. Pelaez during a visit to Atlanta to drum up interest ahead of a possible Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce trade mission to the country later this year.
Panama’s journey as a trade hub began in the early 16th century, as the Spanish set up an outpost on the Caribbean side called Nombre de Dios, now the city of Colon, home to the second largest free-trade zone in the world after Hong Kong. (Mr. Pelaez wryly pointed out that Colon Free Zone is 20 times larger than Miami’s).
The California gold rush in the 1850s brought demand for a railway across the narrow land bridge, an idea that inspired dreams of a shipping channel, started by the French and finished by the U.S. in 1914. President Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s set a handover date for 1999.
Since then, Panama has managed a major canal expansion, including new locks opened for its centennial in 2014 to accommodate the exponentially larger cargo ships plying the 21st-century seas.
Logistics now makes up a quarter of Panama’s economic output. Fully 6 percent of global trade passes through the canal, with 40 percent of that going to the East Coast of the United States via ports like Savannah.
“You guys buy a lot of stuff,” Mr. Pelaez said to laughs from the audience.
Five major ports, two on the Pacific and three on the Atlantic/Caribbean side, have attracted both shippers and storers of goods, the combination of the railroad and the canal providing unrivaled options for processing and trans-shipment. Panamanian ports processed more than 8 million container units in 2024.
Panama offers free trade agreements with 23 countries, and 800 million people live within a two-day shipping journey.
“So Panama is not 4 million,” Mr. Pelaez said, admitting that almost no one sets up in Panama to serve the domestic market alone. “It’s 800 million.”
Panama also levies no taxes on sales that take place outside its borders, offering various tax regimes and incentives targeted at foreign investors.
“So at the end of the day, the question is that we always ask is, ‘So why are you not in Panama?’ And the answer always is, ‘I didn’t know,’” Mr. Pelaez said.
In addition to maritime prowess, Panama is growing its aviation links. Its main hub, Tocumen International Airport, now boasts nearly 18 million passengers, with two nonstop links to Atlanta via 13 weekly flights on Delta Air Lines or Copa Airlines, the latter of which enables most of the connections to more than 90 destinations across Central and South America.
That convenience aids in conversations about Panama as a tech, finance and real estate hub. Industrial parks and zones like the City of Knowledge, Panama Pacifico, and EMMA, are attracting companies in IT, logistics and manufacturing, respectively, with various incentives. In the City of Knowledge, for instance, companies can employ 100 percent foreign workers instead of the 15 percent maximum elsewhere in Panama.
Oriadna Ortega, an investment specialist, said foreigners will feel particularly welcome in Panama, given the diversity of the country and its attractive policies.
“It’s kind of hard to identify a Panamanian. Thanks to our Panama Canal, there’s a lot of people of African, European and Chinese backgrounds,” Ms. Ortega said. “You see all the Panamanians here look different, so you will feel welcome. You will never feel like an outsider in Panama.”
On the corporate side, foreign enterprises also have the assurance that policies won’t change with the whims of politicians, as they have in some other counties in Latin America: Those who invest $2 million or more have their tax rates frozen for 10 years, Ms. Ortega said.
Individuals looking to gain residency in Panama can do so without even being present there for the hearing — all they need to do is invest $300,000 in real estate, $500,000 in stock equity or $750,000 in a bank deposit. The law is being amended to provide a Panamanian passport without citizenship to such permanent residents.
Latin America’s volatile politics is driving citizens of nearby countries to move to Panama, Ms. Ortega said, providing opportunities for real estate developers.
“In Latin America, there is a movement to the left. So people are running away from that, and they want to move their assets, and they’re choosing Panama,” she said.
ProPanama saw the event as a first step toward deeper engagement with Atlanta, becoming the latest economic development investor in the Georgia Hispanic Chamber.
The GHCC helped attract the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s annual convention to Atlanta this year. Learn more about that event Sept. 21-23 here.
