Are people who once immigrated to Panama with high hopes now leaving? This article by Matt, of the Panama Report, investigates this issue further. He asks if "Panama Pioneers" are leaving for Greener Pastures? Are people really fed up with Panama? Is retirement in Panama no longer the dream it once was?
On Friday, September 25th, the same day that Panama’s newly elected President Ricardo Martinelli threw out the ceremonial first pitch at a Yankees-Red Sox thriller in the Bronx, the fifth citizen of Panama died from dengue fever, a tropical hemorrhagic disease spread by infected mosquitoes in the developing world. Also on that day, the seizure of a 200-kilo cocaine raid was announced in one of Panama’s most famous beach regions, a gang shootout in the capital’s UNESCO historic district left an accidental tourist in the ICU, and a straying cow mauled in a highway co llision was eagerly dissected by locals desperate for food. The newsreel might come off as startling were it not for the fact that none of these incidents are particularly unusual to Panama nowadays save the ceremonial first pitch.
Before Yankee’s Stadium, a more serious President Martinelli concluded his speech at the United Nations Headquarters declaring to world leaders that Panama is officially open for business. Martinelli’s words of assurance read like a laundry list of success-spawning agents: “the Dubai of the Americas,” he forecasted. “Friendly and flexible immigration and labor laws…a spirit of service and open doors…the ideal place to invest, establish companies and to live.”
To foreigners who know Panama only by its Canal, the speech came off as decisively utopian. But to those on the inside those who have experienced the country first hand for several years, many of the President’s words fell on frustrated ears. Beyond its growing pains are the less publicized obstacles of life in Panama as a foreigner: ironically many of the very aspects the President has touted now for some time.
Jim Forrester is a middle-aged Florida retiree who, after several investments in Costa Rica, chose the interior hills of Panama for their great climate and immaculate views. The region’s renowned fishing didn’t hurt either for Forrester who set the world record for striped marlin at 226.5 pounds in Costa Rica. “I felt safe coming here,” Forrester said. “It was just a great alternative to retirement in the United States.”
One might be tempted to call Forrester the model foreign investor were he not, after three successive years, prepared to leave Panama for good. “Banking and immigration,” he says, “are the two biggest factors. The amount of hoops you need to jump through can be painful. We’re still waiting on our investor visa.
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