Panama Seeks To Adopt A Framework Law For Public-Private Partnerships

For the past few decades, Panama has established public-private partnerships ("PPPs") in projects as diverse as toll roads, water treatment plants, ports, telecommunications networks and the generation and distribution of electricity. These projects, however, have been created and managed under either a general (and, for current-day standards, insufficient) concessions law dating back to 1988; industry-specific (and, sometimes, project-specific) legislation enacted in the mid-to-late-90's; or the general public procurement law enacted in 2006. In recent years, framework PPP legislation was discussed by the National Assembly, only to be voted down in 2011. It was then considered again at various points between 2014 and 2018, although never formally given any debate before the legislature. In the meantime, a 2017 study commissioned by the Inter-American Development Bank and conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit, ranked Panama 18^th (out of 19 countries listed, with