"Panama is not only the beginning": Foreign Minister pitches nation as India's premier manufacturing, trade launchpad in Latin America

Speaking to ANI during an official visit to India, Vasquez outlined an ambitious five-year roadmap to deepen bilateral ties. He urged Indian enterprises to look beyond geographic distance and leverage Panama's open economy, zero-inflation stability, and unparalleled connectivity to target markets across Central America, the Caribbean, and South America.

The Foreign Minister emphasised that Panama offers much more than a mere entry point, characterising it as a highly reliable, decades-old platform built on financial consistency and structural stability. The Panamanian delegation's agenda includes high-level meetings with various Indian ministers to unlock commercial, diplomatic, and educational opportunities.

"We need to explain to India that despite the distance, Panama is a reliable partner. We are a country with stability, with no inflation, connected through our canal to our logistic platform, through our financial services to our aerial hub and also to an open economy," Vasquez told ANI.

Furthermore, Vasquez highlighted the strategic evolution of the Panama Canal. Amid escalating global geopolitical tensions that have disrupted alternative shipping lanes like the Suez Canal, Panama is seeing an influx of rerouted global transit.

"My delegation and I are going to see many ministers from India. We could be separated by dozens of kilometres, but the most important thing is our shared destiny, and we think that Panama and India could develop lots of opportunities for the diplomatic, commercial, and educational relationship," Vasquez said.

Ensuring the absolute neutrality of the waterway remains a top priority for Panama. While acknowledging the United States as its primary security partner, Vasquez noted that Panama is eager to collaborate with international democratic partners who respect international law--positioning India as a key Asian ally to help uphold these global shipping principles.

"See Panama as a launchpad for Indian products or even Indian manufacturing products because you could establish in Panama facilities to manufacture to tackle Central America, the Caribbean, and South America. I think we are better positioned than our competitors to be your best partner in many regards in Latin America... Don't see Panama as the beginning of the journey to Latin America. Panama is not only the beginning, but it is also probably a very successful story for Indian investments, for Indian companies and even for the Indian government."

The pitched partnership signals a conscious effort by Panama to diversify its economic alliances, offering India a highly secure, efficient, and neutral base to anchor its expanding footprints in the Western Hemisphere.

"The Canal is neutral. The Canal is a Panamanian asset which serve without any distinction to all the nations of the world. We want our partners to be a part of maintaining that efficiency with responsibility," Vasquez added. "Our main security partner is the US. But we have many, many nations around the world that share values, principles that respect international law that could help Panama maintain this efficiency and most importantly, the neutrality. India could also be a strong partner in Asia to advance those principles.

He mentioned that the canal, despite the political tensions around the world, is becoming more important because some transits that used to go to through the Suez Canal are now starting to use the Panama Canal.

"So for us, neutrality is a key factor. We want our canal to be respected again as an international asset that belongs to Panama," the minister stated. "Despite the political tensions around the world, our canal belongs to Panama and it will remain so because we have a treaty and Panama do respect international law as our main partner, the USA, Western democratic countries, etc." (ANI)