PANAMA AND JAPAN EVALUATE NEW FORMULAS OF TRIPARTITE
TECHNICAL COOPERATION
A triangular cooperation where Panama will give assistance to other countries, with the
financial support of Japan, will be implemented.
"What we are seeing is that Panama and Japan, are now branching out into a new
phase of cooperation, that will no longer have as core the non-refundable cooperation,
but a kind of triangular cooperation where Panama will give assistance to other
countries, with the financial support of Japan" stated by the director of International
Technical Cooperation at the Ministry of Economy and Finance, Arlyn González, after
a meeting with representatives of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
For many years the cooperation between Panama and Japan was based on the nonreimbursable assistance, said the director of Technical Cooperation of the MEF, but
now both countries agreed to implement a new modality of co-operation by taking as a
starting point the status of Panama as emerging country and middle-income.
However, Gonzalez said, there are other types of cooperation in which JICA are set to
become strategic partner of Panama, for which our country can provide technical
assistance to other states, giving them training in different areas in which Panama has
achieved a vast experience.
She mentioned that now it is being considered to provide technical assistance and
training to Honduras on the management of watersheds, which, if implemented, will
allow that Panamanian officials with the financial support of the JICA may give advice
to the Hondurans in this specialty, in that the Panamanians have 15 years of
experience. Another model of cooperation would be a public-private partnership,
where Panama is taking its first steps, so we examine the issues that would imply its
adoption, said Arlyn Gonzalez.
For his part, Kazuo Fujishiro, director of the Division of Central America and the
Caribbean of the Japan International Cooperation Agency, described as fruitful the
meeting between the representatives of JICA and the direction of International
Technical Cooperation of the MEF, any time that were evaluated new mechanisms of
cooperation between both countries and the role that should assume Panama as
emerging country, that no longer qualifies as a receiver of non-refundable cooperation
but to participate actively to the side of Japan in seeking to attend third developing
countries in very specific topics, which corresponds to new guidelines for cooperation.
For example, he said, now the two countries work on a scientist project for the
processing of tuna, in the province of Los Santos; also in training courses in Japan for
about 20 Panamanian officials in innovative areas such as management of Railways
among others and the dispatch of Japanese volunteer to Panama to work on different
Panamanian institutions.
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