Day 4 - Panama Pacifico

3D model of the Panama Pacifico master development plan.

Today we had another early start and had to be on the bus at 8:00 AM sharp. We made the trip to Panama Pacifico, which was about 30 minutes from where we are staying. Our first stop was the the Panama Pacifico Agency. There we learned about the plan for Panama Pacifico as a special economic area, similar to a free trade zone, with special incentives for the companies that are located there. Panama Pacifico is currently still under development, but it has an airport, residential areas, commercial real estate, and warehousing.










Green Ivory button manufacturuing process.





Our first company visit was Green Ivory. It was the highlight of the day. Green Ivory is a relatively small company that manufactures buttons for companies that are looking for a high quality button. Green Ivory orginated in Ecuador, but relocated to Panama Pacifico due to political turmoil. There is a lot more that goes into the button manufacturing process than one might expect. The button manufactured by the company are created from a raw materical that is a nut sourced out of Ecuador. Throughout the process, buttons are weighed, turned, punched, embossed, dyed, dried, and smoothed.  They also undergo a quality control process. Due to the processing, there is a good bit of waste created. However, because the raw materical is the all natural Tagua nut, the company sells the waste as cattle feed. Green Ivory has clients such as J Crew and Ralph Lauren, and is looking for more to utilize its buttons.


Here is a link for the company`s website: http://www.corozobuttons.com/

Green Ivory embossed buttons.



Next, was a tour at Dell. Dell was at Panama Pacifico, before it was even Panama Pacifico. They have a very large campus that houses a call center for customers in North and South America. All of the employees for the call center must be proficient enough in English in order to work.

We took a break for lunch and then we did a bus tour of Panama Pacifico. 

Our last stop was VF Corporation. It was very interesting to meet with the Sourcing Director who is a College of Textiles graduate. As Dean Godfrey says, you run into people from the College of Textiles in all parts of the world.

Finally, we went to Allbrook Mall which we have heard about from everyone since we have been here. Apparenly it is the place to be. People even travel by bus from Costa Rica for the cheap shopping. It is like retail overload! The mall is two miles long and is so big that some store have two or three retail spaces. After a long day, it was an interesting, but overwhelming experience.

Tomorrow we will be visting Panama´s main attraction, the Canal!