LatinNews Daily - 08 July 2025

*Panama’s trade and industry ministry (Mici) has released new figures showing that Panama’s exports totalled US$438.7m in the first five months of 2025, up 14.6% on the same period in 2024. A Mici report describes the figure for January-May 2025 as the highest reported figure for this period since 2010, saying that it reflects “the dynamism of non-traditional products as well as the consolidation of certain key markets”. It also highlights the impact of the strike by workers from banana company Chiquita Panamá, the local subsidiary of multinational banana company Chiquita Brands, amid more general protests over new reforms to the social security system (CSS), inter alia. It notes that while bananas remain the country’s leading export, the category accounted for 12.0% of total exports in the five-month period, down from 17.5% previously. The second leading export is frozen shrimp which accounted for 11.7% of exports, followed by raw sugar cane (6.0%), unrefined palm oil (5.5%), and raw teak (4.6%). According to the same report, Panama’s main export sectors were fish and crustaceans, which accounted for 20.9% of exports, followed by fruit (16.5%), fats and oils (8.3%), sugars (6.6%), iron and steel casting (6.0%), and wood (5.3%). As regards markets, the US remains the biggest buyer of Panamanian exports, accounting for 18.0% of the total, followed by Taiwan (11.5%) and the Netherlands (10.0%).

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