Good afternoon.
To make it short, Panama was singled out as a tax haven by the OECD in 2001. In 2002 it made a commitment to the OECD that it would put in place an arrangement to exchange tax information with anyone who wants to get an agreement.
In the last two years, Panama has been very active negotiating comprehensive double taxation agreements that include the OECD standard for the exchange of information. To my knowledge, they have signed ten up to now.
Panama has not been willing to negotiate tax information exchange agreements, which, unlike double taxation agreements, focus only on the issue of exchange of information. Panama has expressed to us their willingness to negotiate a comprehensive double taxation agreement. Our response to Panama has been that at this point in time, we are interested only in negotiating a tax information exchange agreement, an agreement that deals only with the exchange of information. This is where we stand as of today.