Oxford 26 January 2009 - International real estate investment specialists Property Frontiers have named their top six property investment hotspots for 2009 – and the list contains some surprises. Panama, the Central American republic tops the list due to a strong economy, a favourable tax regime and offshore banking attracting businesses from across the globe. Investors can choose a variety of different options, from hotels enjoying high occupancy rates, to offices, and beachside resorts. The expansion of the Panama Canal looks set to underpin future economic growth. The Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur is a thriving city with affordable property and accessible cheaply with a new budget airline linking direct to London with flights from just £99. Outside of Kuala Lumpur is the teeming tourist playground of Sabah on North Borneo,Where Brazil is a booming economy and with sun, samba and a cheap cost of living, is taking over from Florida as the fun capital of the world – and is the same flight distance from London as Miami.
Tourism is lifting off around the northeast city of Natal, which boasts average daily temperatures of 28°C all-year-round and mile after mile of sandy, palm fringed beaches. If traditional buy-to-let is the target, Sao Paulo is one of the world’s largest and fastest growing cities with an insatiable demand for quality accommodation. Slovakia’s High Tatras national park offers all-year round tourism as a UNESCO area of outstanding natural beauty. In the summer, the mountains are an attraction for walkers and golfers, while in the winter cheap skiing lures visitors from all over Europe.
The USA is tipped as one to watch as prices bottom out. Apartments in Florida are selling at 54% lower than their launch price, and according to the builders, at less than their build cost and offer an instant 6% rental return. Coming in last is the UK, with property bargains piling up at auction houses and market commentators still forecasting that prices are stagnating or still falling in most areas. “In real terms the pound is at a point not seen for 10 years. This offers a fantastic buying opportunity for international investors. As a company we have never seen so many enquiries from our international investors looking for UK property. A combined depreciation of the pound and the market now makes UK property some 54% cheaper than a year ago.
source: Panama-Guide.com
Showing posts with label Panama Investment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Panama Investment. Show all posts
Friday, February 06, 2009
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
"The rich are looking to get their money out of the U.S."
As the U.S. is forced to become an even more socialist country many will be doing what is quoted at the end of the article. Sharon Simms, a luxury specialist in St. Petersburg, Florida, has also noticed a bump in international business, but with a twist. “For the first time I’m seeing U.S. citizens looking to get a percentage of their assets outside the United States,”.
This may well be the benefit that Panama will see from the economic shock and oncoming plan to redistribute wealth in the U.S. and Europe. No matter what the politicians promise about taxes, the fact is that somebody is going to have to pay for the mistakes that were made and those that have it will be the ones that have to pay. Unfortunately it won't be the bankers and rich politicians that got us into this mess that will pay. It will be those who through prudence, providence and hard work accumulated wealth and did not live beyond their means. But as this article points out, the rich will be looking at getting their assets and their asses out of harms way and Panama is poised with plenty of property and banks to take care of them. Read the story here.Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Investment propels a real estate boom for Panama
Stability and a steady growth rate are helping to transform this regional hub.
By Sara Miller Llana Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
By Sara Miller Llana Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
November 26, 2007
Panama City - The hilltop view overlooking the former Howard US Air Force Base in Panama says it all. The vacant barracks will be the site of a $10 billion minicity slated to be the size of Central London. Just beyond the hills, the Panama Canal is undergoing a $5 billion expansion, and in the background cranes hang over new skyscrapers that seem to rise every week.
Panama, it seems, is in its prime.
Panama, it seems, is in its prime.
Once overlooked as nothing but a canal, this tiny Central American nation of 3 million is attracting residents, businesses, and investors the world over. Some are seeking a haven from political situations in the region. Others are jumping on what they see as one of the best investments around. But as the government markets itself as the Latin American lodestone, many caution that the city is growing too quickly out of its own infrastructure.
"We are the geographic hub of the Americas," says Ivan Carlucci, the president of the Panamanian Association of Real Estate Brokers and Developers, adding that 11,000 new units will come online this year. He boasts that 99 percent have already sold. Some say that speculators have fueled the boom, but Mr. Carlucci says he expects the real-estate market to maintain its momentum because of other large infrastructure and industrial projects throughout the country. "We will be sustained by all the other aspects."
Thursday, November 15, 2007
A day in Panama City— brand-new skyscrapers, and a colonial quarter
Nov. 13, 2007, 12:56PM
By ARTHUR FROMMER King Features
Still reeling from the fact that our Panama City hotel had a full-scale casino of roulette wheels, blackjack dealers, craps tables and slots (nothing had prepared us for Panama's Las Vegas-style gambling), Roberta and I headed for our first morning in town to the city's outstanding quarter of colonial gems, the Casco Viejo district of 17th-century Spanish charm.
Preserved as the conquistadors left it, Casco Viejo vies with Old Havana and Old San Juan in authenticity — but it is beginning to leave the others behind with the restored beauty of its courtyards, and the sparkling tiles and marble that line many of the cafes, restaurants and shops that occupy these historic structures. Just as Panama City's downtown across the bay is transforming itself into a totally unexpected, skyscraper-packed Hong Kong, Casco Viejo is in the process of being restored into the most tastefully attractive area of the city.
Here the district is studded with fun gift shops (potholders and eyeglass containers in the strongly colorful designs — "molas" — of Panama's indigenous Indians, dolls in the ruffled long skirts of Panama's 19th-century women, feather-light Panama hats), the cafes and restaurants are gracious and courtly, the sight of the city's skyline across the water is stunning, the Presidential Palace (currently housing the Honorable Martin Torrijos) is the center of power and is surrounded by military — but friendly — guards, and the chief sightseeing attraction is the Museo del Canal Interoceanico (the museum that relates the history of the Panama Canal — although its inscriptions are in Spanish only, its many visual aids and movies are understood easily). The Canal museum is an indispensable stop, a necessary prelude to your visit to the Miraflores Locks later in the day.
After a $30 lunch for the two of us (including appetizers, main course, two Panama beers and dessert) at the elegant Mostaza Restaurant, we took a cab to the Miraflores Visitors' Center on the outskirts of town for a look at the actual workings of the canal. As we stood on a high outdoor balcony overlooking the Miraflores Locks, an announcer speaking over a loudspeaker in Spanish, English and French explained the intricate workings that lifts these giant vessels to different levels of the artificial waterway. Asian sailors stood on the deck of one enormous container ship, looking up at us tourists as we gazed at them and their ship.
From Miraflores, we visited not one but two successive marketplaces of Panama City, and bought gifts for relatives back home at prices that were a quarter the levels charged in the lobby gift shop of our hotel.
The tourism of Panama is centered not simply in Panama City, but to a far greater extent in the picture-perfect, uncrowded beaches (with several large resorts) just outside Panama City, and in the renowned San Blas Islands, Pearl Islands and Bocas del Toro offshore islands, as well as on the Gulf of Chiriqui. It's found in the mountain stretches of Boquete, housing rain forests, coffee plantations, and Embera and Kuna Indians — a superb setting for tourism.Just as Americans began flocking to Costa Rica a decade ago, they're now going to what might become the new hot spot of Central America, Panama. You should consider a trip.
Friday, August 03, 2007
Mexican Port Plan Could be Sunk
Panama Canal Expansion a Threat, Experts Say
By Diane Lindquist
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
August 2, 2007
Some experts say plans to build a megaport at Punta Colonet are threatened by improving the Panama Canal to handle more cargo headed to the East Coast.
An expansion of the Panama Canal to allow passage for a new generation of megaships may be threatening plans to build a new port at Punta Colonet, 150 miles south of San Diego.
The Mexican and Panamanian projects are envisioned as gateways for an increasing amount of Asian goods bound for the populous East Coast of the United States. Both would relieve growing congestion at West Coast ports, such as Long Beach and Los Angeles, Seattle and Oakland.
But some experts are saying that Mexico's chance to offer a new trade route has passed.
“The expansion of the Panama Canal almost single-handedly kills Punta Colonet,” Joseph P. Ritzman, project development manager of SSA Marine's terminal operations in Mexico, told The San Diego Union-Tribune this week at a Long Beach ports conference.
SSA has been considered a possible bidder for a Mexican government concession to develop the Colonet project, at an estimated cost of $9 billion. Mexican government officials have said they would like to start the bidding process this year for the port and rail line to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Ritzman joins other industry executive
s and transportation experts who say retailers in the American heartland would be more efficiently served by ships from China and other Asian countries transiting the Panama Canal and sailing directly to Gulf Coast and East Coast ports.
“Then, you can avoid this whole question of intermodal transport,” he said, citing the practice of transferring cargo containers from ships to rail or truck for delivery to their final destinations.
Container cargo destined for the West Coast of the United States is expected to increase at the Port of Los Angeles despite expansion of the Panama Canal.
Ships crossed the Pacific end of the Panama Canal, where expansion plans could negate the need for a planned megaport at Punta Colonet, Mexico, some experts say.
While Mexican officials and shipping executives hope Colonet will be processing Asian containers by 2011, Greg Watkins, president of Watkins/Baile and Associates, a development firm with a stake in expansion of competing Mexican ports, said Colonet will not be operational until 2028.
“I have my doubts about Colonet. There is nothing there,” he said.
Although there has been a slowdown in trans-Pacific shipping this year, due largely to the downturn in the housing industry, trade is expected to double over the next 10 years and triple by 2025.
With the new generation of megaships carrying 8,000 to 10,000 TEUs – the standard measure of containerized cargo – West Coast ports are unlikely to be able to handle the load, despite expansion projects in the works everywhere from Prince Rupert in Canada to the giant Los Angeles-Long Beach complex that processes two-thirds of Asian shipments into the United States.
“There's already congestion. We're doing everything possible to address these issues,” said Mario Cordero, president of the Port of Long Beach's Harbor Commission.
Cargo volume at the two ports jumped 66 percent between 2000 and 2006, largely because of the increase in goods from Asia.
The shipping industry has become preoccupied with the problem, but the Panama Canal project promises some relief. The $5.25 billion overhaul will double the canal's capacity by adding a third set of locks that are 40 percent longer and 60 percent wider than current ones.
“We'll have a comparative advantage – location, location, location – as long as you have capacity, capacity, capacity,” said Rodolfo Sabonge, the Panama Canal Authority's director of corporate planning and marketing.
The authority probably will be raising rates to pay for the expansion, he told the Union-Tribune at a terminal operators conference in Acapulco last year. The overhaul, which began this month with the awarding of a construction contract, is the greatest modernization since the United States built the canal in 1914. It is expected to be finished by 2018.
“What the Panamanian people are doing is a necessity for the continent as a whole,” said Cordero of the Port of Long Beach. Cordero, among industry insiders who believe there still is a need for Colonet, said he gets more inquiries about the Mexican project than any other. “Trade is growing at an unbelievable pace, and everybody needs to do whatever they can to accommodate that, whether the expansion of the canal or the development of a port,” he said.
Mexican President Felipe Calderón gave the Punta Colonet project a high priority in his plan to invest $234 billion in the country's infrastructure over the next five years through partnerships with the private sector. His strategy is to use improvements in the transportation infrastructure as a lever to raise Mexico into a central role in North American supply chains.
The project, initiated under the Vicente Fox administration, should have been in the works but has been stalled by a mineral group's claims to precious metals in the seabed where the port is envisioned.
SSA Marine, which manages Manzanillo, Mexico's largest container port operation, aligned itself with the group, Grupo Mineros Lobos, in a deal that would ensure that it would build at least one of Colonet's terminal operations.
“We have distanced ourselves from Grupo Lobos. We are no longer involved with them,” said Ritzman, the SSA project development manager.
The company plans to significantly expand capacity of its operations at Manzanillo, he said. Ritzman did not rule out SSA bidding to develop facilities at Colonet.
“We'll look at that project on a project-by-project basis,” he said.
Steven G. Lautsch, executive vice president of MTC Holdings, an Oakland terminal operator company that also has expressed interest in the Colonet port, said he thinks the project will attract numerous bidders.
While the Panama Canal project will be able to accommodate larger ships, he noted, there are few if any ports on the East Coast that can accept the megaships.
“They have to have a destination somewhere,” Lautsch said.
He said shipping patterns favor the larger vessels from Asia entering a West Coast port and transferring cargo at an intermodal facility for delivery by rail or truck to consumers in the far reaches of the United States.
“And where better than Colonet?” he asked.
By Diane Lindquist
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
August 2, 2007
Some experts say plans to build a megaport at Punta Colonet are threatened by improving the Panama Canal to handle more cargo headed to the East Coast.
An expansion of the Panama Canal to allow passage for a new generation of megaships may be threatening plans to build a new port at Punta Colonet, 150 miles south of San Diego.
The Mexican and Panamanian projects are envisioned as gateways for an increasing amount of Asian goods bound for the populous East Coast of the United States. Both would relieve growing congestion at West Coast ports, such as Long Beach and Los Angeles, Seattle and Oakland.
But some experts are saying that Mexico's chance to offer a new trade route has passed.
“The expansion of the Panama Canal almost single-handedly kills Punta Colonet,” Joseph P. Ritzman, project development manager of SSA Marine's terminal operations in Mexico, told The San Diego Union-Tribune this week at a Long Beach ports conference.
SSA has been considered a possible bidder for a Mexican government concession to develop the Colonet project, at an estimated cost of $9 billion. Mexican government officials have said they would like to start the bidding process this year for the port and rail line to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Ritzman joins other industry executive
s and transportation experts who say retailers in the American heartland would be more efficiently served by ships from China and other Asian countries transiting the Panama Canal and sailing directly to Gulf Coast and East Coast ports.“Then, you can avoid this whole question of intermodal transport,” he said, citing the practice of transferring cargo containers from ships to rail or truck for delivery to their final destinations.
Container cargo destined for the West Coast of the United States is expected to increase at the Port of Los Angeles despite expansion of the Panama Canal.
Ships crossed the Pacific end of the Panama Canal, where expansion plans could negate the need for a planned megaport at Punta Colonet, Mexico, some experts say.
While Mexican officials and shipping executives hope Colonet will be processing Asian containers by 2011, Greg Watkins, president of Watkins/Baile and Associates, a development firm with a stake in expansion of competing Mexican ports, said Colonet will not be operational until 2028.
“I have my doubts about Colonet. There is nothing there,” he said.
Although there has been a slowdown in trans-Pacific shipping this year, due largely to the downturn in the housing industry, trade is expected to double over the next 10 years and triple by 2025.
With the new generation of megaships carrying 8,000 to 10,000 TEUs – the standard measure of containerized cargo – West Coast ports are unlikely to be able to handle the load, despite expansion projects in the works everywhere from Prince Rupert in Canada to the giant Los Angeles-Long Beach complex that processes two-thirds of Asian shipments into the United States.
“There's already congestion. We're doing everything possible to address these issues,” said Mario Cordero, president of the Port of Long Beach's Harbor Commission.
Cargo volume at the two ports jumped 66 percent between 2000 and 2006, largely because of the increase in goods from Asia.
The shipping industry has become preoccupied with the problem, but the Panama Canal project promises some relief. The $5.25 billion overhaul will double the canal's capacity by adding a third set of locks that are 40 percent longer and 60 percent wider than current ones.
“We'll have a comparative advantage – location, location, location – as long as you have capacity, capacity, capacity,” said Rodolfo Sabonge, the Panama Canal Authority's director of corporate planning and marketing.
The authority probably will be raising rates to pay for the expansion, he told the Union-Tribune at a terminal operators conference in Acapulco last year. The overhaul, which began this month with the awarding of a construction contract, is the greatest modernization since the United States built the canal in 1914. It is expected to be finished by 2018.
“What the Panamanian people are doing is a necessity for the continent as a whole,” said Cordero of the Port of Long Beach. Cordero, among industry insiders who believe there still is a need for Colonet, said he gets more inquiries about the Mexican project than any other. “Trade is growing at an unbelievable pace, and everybody needs to do whatever they can to accommodate that, whether the expansion of the canal or the development of a port,” he said.
Mexican President Felipe Calderón gave the Punta Colonet project a high priority in his plan to invest $234 billion in the country's infrastructure over the next five years through partnerships with the private sector. His strategy is to use improvements in the transportation infrastructure as a lever to raise Mexico into a central role in North American supply chains.
The project, initiated under the Vicente Fox administration, should have been in the works but has been stalled by a mineral group's claims to precious metals in the seabed where the port is envisioned.
SSA Marine, which manages Manzanillo, Mexico's largest container port operation, aligned itself with the group, Grupo Mineros Lobos, in a deal that would ensure that it would build at least one of Colonet's terminal operations.
“We have distanced ourselves from Grupo Lobos. We are no longer involved with them,” said Ritzman, the SSA project development manager.
The company plans to significantly expand capacity of its operations at Manzanillo, he said. Ritzman did not rule out SSA bidding to develop facilities at Colonet.
“We'll look at that project on a project-by-project basis,” he said.
Steven G. Lautsch, executive vice president of MTC Holdings, an Oakland terminal operator company that also has expressed interest in the Colonet port, said he thinks the project will attract numerous bidders.
While the Panama Canal project will be able to accommodate larger ships, he noted, there are few if any ports on the East Coast that can accept the megaships.
“They have to have a destination somewhere,” Lautsch said.
He said shipping patterns favor the larger vessels from Asia entering a West Coast port and transferring cargo at an intermodal facility for delivery by rail or truck to consumers in the far reaches of the United States.
“And where better than Colonet?” he asked.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Panama: The Prospect of More Business for American Manufacturers
The President has notified Congress that he intends to sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with Panama. This is good news for America's manufacturers, as the more trade agreements we have, the more markets we open for US-made goods. Exports are growing much faster than imports in part because we are opening new markets through trade deals.
Recall that in only one year after CAFTA, we went from a $1 billion trade deficit with CAFTA countries to a $1 billion trade surplus. Doesn't take a trade expert to figure out that CAFTA opened markets, helped drive exports to those countries.
Here's a link to our press release, hailing this most recent good news. You'll see our new trade policy director Doug Goudie quoted as saying that our trade with FTA countries accounts for half of our overall trade but only six percent of our trade deficit. Let's hope we have more FTA's.
UPDATE (By Carter Wood, 9:40 a.m.): Want to help the economic revival of post-Katrina New Orleans? Support the U.S.-Panama FTA, allowing U.S. manufacturers and businesses to take full advantage of the $5.5 billion Panama Canal expansion.
From Time Magazine:
The plan calls for adding a third set of locks, wide enough to serve the supersize, post-Panamax vessels--those carrying more than 5,000 20-ft.-long containers--that many consider the future of commercial-cargo shipping. The canal's Old World competitor, Egypt's Suez Canal, can already accommodate the bigger vessels. A resized Panama Canal could be a boon to U.S. ports on the Gulf and East coasts, which currently handle post-Panamax cargo directly to and from Asia only via the lengthier Suez route. Says Gary LaGrange, CEO of the Port of New Orleans: "This will be monumental for maritime trade on the Gulf Coast."
Recall that in only one year after CAFTA, we went from a $1 billion trade deficit with CAFTA countries to a $1 billion trade surplus. Doesn't take a trade expert to figure out that CAFTA opened markets, helped drive exports to those countries.
Here's a link to our press release, hailing this most recent good news. You'll see our new trade policy director Doug Goudie quoted as saying that our trade with FTA countries accounts for half of our overall trade but only six percent of our trade deficit. Let's hope we have more FTA's.
UPDATE (By Carter Wood, 9:40 a.m.): Want to help the economic revival of post-Katrina New Orleans? Support the U.S.-Panama FTA, allowing U.S. manufacturers and businesses to take full advantage of the $5.5 billion Panama Canal expansion.
From Time Magazine:
The plan calls for adding a third set of locks, wide enough to serve the supersize, post-Panamax vessels--those carrying more than 5,000 20-ft.-long containers--that many consider the future of commercial-cargo shipping. The canal's Old World competitor, Egypt's Suez Canal, can already accommodate the bigger vessels. A resized Panama Canal could be a boon to U.S. ports on the Gulf and East coasts, which currently handle post-Panamax cargo directly to and from Asia only via the lengthier Suez route. Says Gary LaGrange, CEO of the Port of New Orleans: "This will be monumental for maritime trade on the Gulf Coast."
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