Economics on Wednesday

  The Pandemic accelerated technological advances and their application in business. For those who did not fall asleep during the hibernation of the seven months of forced confinement in Panama, technology was essential for some businesses to have some income to survive. This meant a fundamental change in the way of doing business, from how to serve customers to satisfy their needs, the company's operating process, the number of employees, the application of technologies, the constant search for savings, and the constant adaptation to the changes caused by a virus of which we still have much to know (even though we have advanced a lot). The government was not far behind, and there are many examples that I hope the government will maintain and continue improving many more processes and increase even after the pandemic. The truth is that the AIG (Authority for Government Innovation) has developed good projects, including an award-winning one in Latin America. The DGI practicall...

It was not until the middle of the month that the Official Gazette published Law 176 of 2020 on the General Budget of the Nation for the year 2021, so that we have been able to finish this article, which is already 3 weeks late. And it is that the National Assembly has just approved the budget of US$24,162 million for the year 2021, a year in which although I think that we will recover somehow, I do not agree to establish a budget for this magnitude instead of playing it "safe" and see what happens next year. I am clear that it is a political decision to continue thinking that the State is a political piñata, in some cases, and to be in denial about the scope of the virus in the economy, but this decision can radically affect us for the future and our claims to maintain Panama. as one of the 27 countries in the world with investment grade. We are going to analyze this budget, from the macroeconomic point of view, without getting into the Ministries and Entities budget, si...

  We continue with the analysis of the actions that the President of the Republic of Panama announced last June 2020 for the Economic and Social Recovery of the country. These actions are constituted as one of the pillars of the economic reactivation of the country to counteract the effects of the CoVid-19 pandemic. •        Temporary jobs will be generated in the neighborhoods through the rehabilitation and renovation of buildings and public infrastructure, the acquisition of homes will also be facilitated with funds from the Panama Savings Fund and others. Neither the Municipality of Panama nor the Municipality of David, the largest in the republic, show any type of news regarding this point, which is an excellent idea. We search the MOP, and we only see its arrangements of streets and roads in the city, as well as roads in remote and rural places, but that has nothing to do with this activity, but rather the MOP initiative that we will see later...

 The President of Panama, in his message to the nation on July 1, at the inauguration of the next Legislative period and celebrating his first year in government, announced 12 Priority Actions for the Economic and Social Recovery of the country after the pandemic. In this article, we are going to recall each of these 12 actions, and we will analyze the results that have been obtained to date. And because of the length of this analysis, we will do it in parts. Let's look at three actions announced by President Cortizo and that has a lot to do with each other since they are closely linked with the Banking Sector. • They have allocated US$20 million through the National Bank and the Caja de Ahorros to finance loans between US$2,000 and US$5,000 in comfortable terms of 84 months for Micro, Small, and Medium (MSM) sized companies. • He also assured that for MSM enterprises, there is a fund of US$150 million for loans with soft interest rates and a term of 84 months and they also have a ...