Cubans led the visits to the so-called free zone of Panama during the year 2023, with 15,042 people, closely followed by Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia and Peru.
According to data provided by the Visitor Passes section of the Security Directorate, the Colón Free Zone (ZLC), a regional shopping and tourism epicenter, registered an impressive increase in the influx of tourists at the end of 2023, with a total of 52,364 visitors, compared to 40,754 the previous year, the newspaper reported The Press.
This increase of more than 11,000 tourists represents a notable milestone in the area's tourism development, authorities said.
Likewise, they confirmed that the majority of visitors come from countries in the region, such as Cuba, which leads the ranking with 15,042 people, closely followed by Ecuador (12,053), Costa Rica (4,984), Colombia (3,327) and Peru (2,023).
The first quarter of 2024 has also had a considerable influx, with 13,509 tourists, and once again Cuba tops the list with 4,172 visitors, followed by Ecuador (2,931), and Costa Rica (1,572).
This sustained growth in the influx of foreign tourists has boosted commercial activity in the ZLC, which reported transactions for a total of $33,368 million in 2023.
The marked Cuban presence in this free trade zone began to grow several years ago, when Panama made entry requirements to the country more flexible for Cubans; and it has not stopped despite the creation of stores in MLC by the Havana regime to stop the "leak" of foreign currency; Well, with the authorization of MSMEs and the failure of the aforementioned stores, exports from these countries skyrocketed again.
The representatives of the ZLC said in 2019 that re-exports to Cuba from Panama added 335.5 million dollars in 2018.
Last year, Cubans were also the foreign visitors who bought the most in the free zone of Panama, which between January and July 2023 registered 30,154 tourists from the Caribbean, Central America and South America.
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