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Costa Rican border, is thought to be among the world's largest. Bananas are the country's biggest export, and there is ample room for more plantations if money can be found to continue clearing the green jungle. Shrimp is already big business, and the World Bank is financing the construction of a fishing port at Vacamonte on the Pacific coast. Though Panama's lone cement plant, which is privately owned, is now operating at only half of its capacity, the government is finishing up a new $68 million plant of its own that is scheduled to begin production late this year. Torrijos' advisers are sure that with recovery, both plants will be going at full tilt.
Still, Panama's economy is weighted toward service industries, and there lies the biggest growth potential. Some businessmen think the government should expand the single-track Panama Railroad to handle more traffic in the containers borne by ships too large to navigate the canal. The free-trade zone in Colon already contributes 7½ % of the gross domestic product; the zone could spread onto American-occupied land near by that would be ceded to Panama under the treaties. Panamanians are even now enlarging the country's international financial center, an outpost of 81 banks from all over that are lured by the country's easy tax and currency-convertibility laws. The dream: to make Panama a kind of Latin Switzerland.
If the treaties are torpedoed, says Panamanian Economist Guillermo Chapman, unemployment could reach 30% and "growth" could shrivel to minus 3% yearly. It is only fair to add that if the treaties are ratified and the economy fails to recover, the Panamanians will have no one to blame but themselves. ∙