Panama Foreign Investment Increases
Foreign investments in Panama reached 2.56 billion dollars last year, which is a record in Panama, said the General Comptrollership Office Thursday.

A communique of this institution said this was an increase of 149 percent compared to 2005, a record over the 1.299 billion dollars reached ten years ago.

The Comptrollership Office said the growth is related with the purchase of group Banistmo by British bank HSBC, one of the main in the world, for 1.77 billion dollars.

Important real estate projects and greater investments by foreign enterprises operating in Panama also influenced that result.

However, the text said the investment of users of the duty free zone of Colon was reduced in this segment of time.