Elisa Suárez de Gómez was sworn in as re-elected president of the Panamanian Association of Business Executives (Apede), sending a message to the Government about the urgency of applying measures that allow a sustainable economic reactivation in a country marked by unemployment (20%) and the economic crisis amid the pandemic.
The message went directly to President Laurentino Cortizo, who participated in the formal ceremony.
”Throughout the terrible situation generated by the
Covid-19 pandemic, we have strongly warned that the biosecurity measures that must be promoted and deepened should not conspire against the recovery process of the national economy. Combating the pandemic must guarantee, not only health, but also that the business fabric is not ruined and, therefore, that the generation of jobs is not affected even more,” she said.
Without sustainable companies, we will never have decent jobs, she said. During the last year, business associations have warned of the lack of effectiveness in the application of mobility restrictions that have prevented consumption and demand from reactivated.
For the economy to recover, Suárez said that not only is it enough to open a company, “we have to inject the necessary impulse so that it has customers and, therefore, we have to create jobs and, of course, eliminate the restriction measures that are really studied and coherent so that they cause the greatest benefit to health and the least harm to companies and their workers, there is no other way to do it.”
In this sense, she specified that it is essential that the vaccination process be intensified, "now that the
vaccines have arrived en masse". And on the other hand, it is essential to end the "extravagant bureaucracy".
Cortizo described Suárez's words as profound and valid, reiterated the joint participation of the public and private sectors to produce wealth and reduce the gap between Panamanians.
He also spoke of the work that the Government is doing to attract foreign investment and the massive vaccination process that the country is currently facing to make possible the economic reactivation that is expected.