Panama’s strategically placed canal and decades of open commerce policy have made it a popular trading partner: It has nearly a dozen trade agreements, including a pending one with the United States awaiting Congressional approval. To properly manage all these agreements, Panama’s government hired CARANA in 2008 with funding from the Inter-American Development Bank to design a powerful software tool for Panama’s trade administration agency (DGAT) that would track the agreements’ requirements, plan actions and assist communications. 

Working with a small group of consultants from Colombia, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Venezuela and the U.S, CARANA designed a web-based program called SICOD (Sistema de Información y Comunicaciones para la DGAT). This cutting-edge tool, unveiled in March 2009, makes it easy to monitor and manage deadlines, coordinate between government agencies and communicate with exporters and importers, trading partners and civil society. SICOD organizes commitments by agreement, chapter, and article and identifies all responsible parties and required actions—with sound alerts for upcoming deadlines. CARANA trained DGAT staff on the software and extracted specific required actions from the commitments in the U.S.-Panama agreement.  

During benchmarking, CARANA discovered that Chile, Costa Rica and Mexico were using simple Excel spreadsheets to administer multiple trade agreements. SICOD makes Panama a leader in Latin America, better equipped to comply with trade obligations and empowered to take full advantage of opportunities with its trading partners. CARANA can also adapt its software for other countries seeking practical implementation of complex trade agreements. 

Published July 2009

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