The Ministry of Foreign Relations of the Republic of Panama published a note dated October 31st, 2015, clarifying the Panamanian position regarding the recent automatic exchange of information agreement, before the international community and users of the financial platform and services. The note states that our country has announced its commitment to employ the mechanism of automatic exchange of information beginning in the year 2018. The note clearly explains that this will be carried out on a strictly bi-lateral, reciprocal manner, under specific conditions formulated to guarantee the protection of confidentiality, as announced by President Juan Carlos Varela during the 70th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York in September of this year.
The Government of Panama further clarified that our commitment is limited to the points noted in the previous paragraph, and that it will conform to global standards of fiscal transparency and not exclusively to the standards of the OCDE. This commitment, as stated in the note, will be carried out according to our methology and specific standards inspired primarily from the IGA 1A model that incorporates those elements of the OCDE Standard for Automatic Exchange of Information which are considered to be appropriate.
As this is an evolving issue, the National Government will take the measures considered necessary to insure that this automatic exchange of information not be used as a measure serving to vitiate the country’s competitive position to the benefit of other financial centers.
The Republic of Panama reiterates its proposal that the debate of these issues be incorporated into the regular agenda of the United Nations, thus insuring that countries may discuss initiatives presented under conditions of greater equality.
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