PANAMA

The Panamanian government continues to drive action to promote and modernize its customs system. In late January, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MICI, for its acronym in Spanish) met with the National Customs Authority (ANA, for its acronym in Spanish) to discuss facilitating procedures between the entities. The ANA also met with representatives of the International Monetary Fund to promote the use of technological tools such as the Integrated Customs Management System (SIGA, for iits acronym in Spanish) and the Declaration of Electronic Commercial Movement system (DMC-E, for its acronym in Spanish systems. The ANA is working to develop blockchain technologies to ensure product traceability. All measures will continue to be developed in the medium term. 

During the ANA-MICI meeting, officials agreed to organize training for technicians from both entities, to coordinate and facilitate joint work regarding procedures. The ANA-IMF meeting was held to discuss integrating the DMC-E and SIGA systems to guarantee greater security and speed up the validation of documents. 

The meeting was also an opportunity to carry out training courses for logistics personnel on ways of integrating these tools in the Colon Free Zone. The idea is to strengthen customs controls and avoid duplicating the task of digitalizating information. The issue of Blockchain technology was also brought, as the ANA is keen to develop this as a technological tool to promote transparency and the traceability of products entering the country.