IL Postcard

How Panama's Business Incubator Will Help You Succeed

Date: 06/24/2008

June 25, 2008
Panama City, Panama

Dear Panama Enthusiast,

Forget about Panama as a retirement destination. Oh sure, we still have the best pensioner's program—that hasn’t changed—but more and more of the expats relocating here are planning to remain active. And long before the mainstream press caught wind of Panama's vast potential for retirees or tourists, this country was known as the region's prime business destination.

Your Panama Insider editors are always on the lookout for new business or investment opportunities. Just recently we sent you a top five list of hot business opportunities. Now we have more information to entice you. The National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) in Panama is here to help you succeed as an entrepreneur.

If you want to start a business that offers an innovative, high-tech idea or environmentally sound technology, you could set up shop via the NBIA and avail yourself of some of Panama's best financial incentives. There are a few requirements—for example, all participating companies must dedicate at least 50% of their budgets and/or work force to research and development.

The Incubator is there to help you be successful. Services offered include business training and consulting, plus administrative and special services (like event organization and even assistance with visas and locating funding).

Once you're up and running, the incentives are the real prize:

• Exemption from all taxes, contributions, duties of import fees on all machinery, equipment, or other material necessary for development
• Exemption from any tax, duty or lien imposed on the remittance of money abroad
• Exemption from all local taxes and encumbrances on activities, operations, transactions, procedures and the transfer of property
• Exemption of company capital from local direct taxes, including taxes on patents and licenses
• A special two-year multiple entry work visa for foreigners on staff…and their families.

Local companies have already benefited from the NBIA. One such success story is Grupo Axis, an Internet strategy and technology consulting company. The Axis principals approached the NBIA in September 2000 and with help from the incubator, set up shop in December 2001. Now its client roster includes big-hitters such as the National Concert Association and the Miramar Intercontinental Hotel.

If you're considering starting a new business, why not do it here, through the NBIA?

Thanks for reading Panas,

Jessica Ramesch
Editor, Panama Insider

P.S. The NBIA is located in one of Panama's nicest neighborhoods . This neighborhood is a great place to live, with everything from good schools to green parks. Learn more about business and real estate opportunities here through Panama Insider, the only monthly publication specifically created with you—the Panama "untourist"—in mind. Whatever your Panama plans, you owe it to yourself to get the best, most up-to-the-minute information. Panama Insider offers the nitty-gritty details you won't get through short, fluffy articles by mainstream press. Find out more here.