Land transportation carriers begin protest strike in Panama

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Panama’s independent road haulage companies began an indefinite national strike on Thursday to denounce that large shipping companies are allegedly trying to monopolize the business of transporting nationalized merchandise within the country.

The carriers, who blocked with their trucks the entrance of ports in Panama City (Pacific) and the Caribbean province of Colon, said they would maintain the measure of force until the Executive of the Panamanian president, Laurentino Cortizo, intervenes and “enforces the law” that protects the sector.

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According to the strikers, this problem has been going on for several years, and although agreements have been reached at negotiation tables with the shipping companies, they have not complied with them in the end.

“We are directly asking the shipping companies Maersk and MSC to get their hands off local transport, nationalized cargo, since by history and heritage we, the nationals, have always handled nationalized cargo”, said to Efe the carrier Abdiel Recuero at the gates of the Port of Balboa, in the capital.

Daniel Rojas, a carrier with 30 years in the Panamanian market, accused “some shipping companies” of engaging in “monopolistic practices to monopolize land, customs documentation, and cargo storage”.

“Panama’s logistics hub moves 4 to 5 million containers each year, we (carriers), customs, and the people who are manning the logistics hub only handle 15% of that total per year. It is a tiny slice, and they want to monopolize it somehow,” Rojas told Efe.

The president of the National Union of Customs Brokers of Panama, Desireé Montero, said that the union supports the complaint of the carriers since the shipping companies “have violated” Panamanian laws.

“These transnationals are affecting the logistics sector, monopolizing the activities we carry out, monopolizing the market, and this is why we call on the government to take action. We are not opposed to foreign investment as long as it occupies its rightful place in the logistics chain,” Montero added in statements to Efe.

For his part, the Deputy Minister of Domestic Trade, Omar Montilla, called on the parties to sit down at a negotiating table to find a solution to the conflict and stressed that the government could not sanction the shipping companies because the transport services they offer are carried out by Panamanian carriers, as required by law.

“The thing is painted as if the company (the shipping company) provides transportation and displaces. Those who are mobilizing in one way or another the cargo are Panamanians who have partnered with the shipping company, in the shipping company offers perhaps a significant volume of cargo and has said give a better price to this customer,” said the deputy minister in statements to local radio.

Montilla said that the strikers “ask for a motivated resolution” from President Cortizo in which he “tells the shipping company to contract with X or Y”, but warned that “that is something that is not within the possibilities of a negotiation” because the head of state “is not the owner of the shipping company”.

The government seeks that “common sense prevails in all the parties” involved in the conflict and that “the shipping companies have said: let the clients choose their transportation”.

The business associations warn that this type of measure of force generates losses in the millions and reputational damage to Panama’s neuralgic logistics sector, where the inter-oceanic canal is located, which gives way to 6% of world trade.