Wednesday, April 20, 2011

What Is The Zona Libre De Colon?

By Joshua Adekane


The Zona Libre de Colon's success is due to a combination of factors such as its geographical location in the Republic of Panama (Central America), the Panama Canal, the use of the US dollar as legal tender, a large banking center, a very developed insurance industry, state-of-the-art container ports and not very demanding business requirements.

Key figures about the Zona libre de Colon:

* Second largest Tax Free Zone in the world after Hong Kong

*Largest free zone on the American continent

*450 hectares

*455 hectares

*300 000 buyers every years

*Over 25 000 employees

*14 billion in imports and exports

Which countries do business with the Zona Libre de Colon? Most of the products are transshipped from Panama to other ports of Latin America. Imports come from the Far East with the largest suppliers coming from Hong Kong followed by Taiwan, United States, Japan, Korea, France, Mexico, Italy, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, UK, Malaysia and Germany. The most important buyer is Colombia. Other buyers include Venezuela, Guatemala, Ecuador, Costa Rica, USA, Chile, Honduras, Brazil and more.

The Zona Libre de Colon attracts more buyers thanks to its close proximity to the Panama Canal. Over 12,000 vessels cross the Panama Canal every year. With the expansion of the Canal planned to be finished by 2014, this traffic will surely increase. Several warehouse and logistic projects are planned for the next 5 years allowing the Zona Libre de Colon to grow.




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