ZLC concessions eliminated

PANAMA. It seems that President Ricardo Martinelli is going to stomp on everything and anything to keep his campaign promises. Now in the sights of his clean up crusade has come the Colon duty free Zone (ZLC).

Forty seven concessions have been eliminated to give way to the construction of a new international airport. The concessions are located next to the France Field airport, which the new government aims to remodel and transform into an international terminal. The elimination of these 47 concessions happened to avoid the construction of building next to the current airport, which would hinder the project. Frank De Lima, Vice minister of Economy, said about the concessions, “ At the moment there was nothing concrete on those lots and everything was only in process”. There is no infrastructure on the lots and their weeds are going rampant. The past administration gave the grounds in concession because they had decided to put the airport elsewhere. The construction of a international airport is a long awaited aspiration of the ZLC businessmen because it would reduce their cargo transport costs.