LatinNews Daily - 20 December 2023

*Panama’s trade & industry minister, Jorge Rivera Staff, has unveiled an action plan regarding the closure of major copper mine Cobre Panamá. The closure of the mine, which is owned by Canadian mining company First Quantum Minerals (FQM), is in line with the recent supreme court (CSJ) ruling. The action plan is based on three specific strategies: the ordered and definitive closure of the mine; defence of the state against international arbitration (FQM has already announced arbitration proceedings); and the sustainable substitution of metallic mining in the country’s GDP. Staff said that the plans to close the mine immediately were unprecedented for a mine the size of Cobre Panamá, claiming that typically it would two years to draw up a closure plan and up to ten years or more to implement. On 16 December Cobre Panamá, which provides 7,000 direct jobs, announced that over 2,500 employees would be taking part in a special voluntary retirement scheme following the CSJ ruling. Meanwhile on 18 December Panama’s economy & finance minister, Héctor Alexander, announced that the 2024 state budget proposal would be slashed by 6.3% from US$32.75bn to US$30.69bn. This follows the government's previous warning that it would be forced to cut the budget due to the impact of the mine’s closure.