Zoned Out.ASIDE FROM THE CANAL, PANAMA IS known mainly for the Col6n Free Zone, a 980-acre compound situated at the Caribbean entrance to the deepwater channel. The zone is home to 1,600 businesses that ship goods around the world and operate in tariff-free bliss. But lately there has been little joy in this trade paradise. While Panama enjoyed economic growth of 3.9% last year, well above the regional average of 2.5%, the free-trade zone-the largest in the Western Hemisphere-actually suffered a recession. "Business, I have to be honest with you, is not the best:' says Col6n manager Ricardo Aleman Ricardo Aleman is a Mexican-American author and comedian based in New York City where he performs regularly at Comic Strip Live[1]. He has appeared recently on NBC's reality television show America's Got Talent (season 2)[2] , mostly due to the effect of the Asian economic crisis on some of its biggest regional customers- Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela. To pick up the slack 1. (operating system) slack - Internal fragmentation. Space allocated to a disk file but not actually used to store useful information. 2. (jargon) slack , Aleman and a small entourage The e-mail program included in the Macintosh version of Microsoft Office. Combining the functions of Outlook with scheduling capabilities, Entourage was introduced with Microsoft Office 2001 for Mac, the first release of Office for OS X. of Panamanians headed to Houston and further north to drum up new business. The United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. supplies just an eighth of the trade area's imports, the balk balk the action of a horse when it refuses to obey a command to which it usually responds. See also jibbing. of which come from Asia. "When you look at the fact that 87% of the companies in the Colon Free Zone are from outside the U.S., it shows that the U.S. has not paid enough attention to it," says Juan Sosa, president of the U.S-Panama Business Council in Washington. The reason for the lack of enthusiasm is piracy piracy, robbery committed or attempted on the high seas. It is distinguished from privateering in that the pirate holds no commission from and receives the protection of no nation but usually attacks vessels of all nations. . Panama has long been renowned for turning a blind eye toward intellectual property rights. Aleman insists that's a thing of the past. With help from the U.S. Embassy, "we seized millions of dollars in merchandise last year from 22 companies:' he says. "We just seized the largest cargo of CDs -$10 million worth. So, we are fighting it." Can Colon attract U.S. companies? Judging from the sparse sparse - A sparse matrix (or vector, or array) is one in which most of the elements are zero. If storage space is more important than access speed, it may be preferable to store a sparse matrix as a list of (index, value) pairs or use some kind of hash scheme or associative memory. breakfast crowd in Houston, the zone is a tough sell. The possibility of a hemisphere-wide free-trade pact in 2001 could take away much of the zone's attractiveness. But these brochure-toting officials are determined. They are even dangling a possible 300-acre expansion to add warehouse space by the end of this year. Boasts Sosa: "We feel that the Colon Free Zone is one of the best-kept secrets in Panama:" Time will tell if their "secret" gets out. |
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