Georgia Tech-Panama Logistics Innovation & Research Center Launched Today
(Panama City, PANAMA, September 7 2010) - Georgia Tech celebrates the inauguration ceremonies for the Georgia Tech-Panama Logistics Innovation & Research Center today in Panama City, PANAMA. The Center is the latest addition to the Georgia Tech Supply Chain & Logistics Institute’s logistics innovation network of centers that focus on improving country level logistics performance and increasing trade competitiveness.
Under an agreement negotiated with the Panama’s National Secretariat of Science, Technology and Innovation, the Georgia Tech Supply Chain & Logistics Institute (SCL) has established and will operate the Georgia Tech – Panama Logistics Innovation and Research Center located in Panama City, Panama. The center has three core thrusts -- applied research, education, and competitiveness -- the center has two primary objectives 1) to improve the logistics performance of Panama and 2) to establish Panama as the trade hub of the Americas. The center will establish education programs to increase human capital in logistics with both formal degree programs and through executive education, develop repositories and models to support trade analytics, develop performance, integration and visibility systems, facilitate stronger industry and infrastructure linkages to improve Panama’s competitiveness, provide leadership for the development of a National Logistics Plan and National Logistics Council, and provide innovation for logistics leading to new logistics services and jobs.
Holding a vision of Panama as a logistics, communications, education, research, and scientific tourism hub, Dr. Dario Solis, former director of research and professor of mechanical and electrical engineering at Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá (UTP)/Technological University of Panama, has been tapped as the center’s managing director. Solis’ many projects have been strategically and synergistically oriented around efforts to improve national infrastructure in transportation, to exploit Panama's competitive advantage in telecommunications, and to exercise its potential as an academic and research destination. Dario Solis sees this as “a historical opportunity for the country of Panama to develop its huge potential and to become a dominate player in global trade.” He believes this opportunity can generate the resources necessary to improve the quality of life for all Panamanians.
Paying close attention to the center’s development is Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli and Georgia Tech President G. P. “Bud” Peterson, both of whom will speak at the center’s opening program.
"Panama is a natural place for a trade hub,” said Don Ratliff, SCL executive director. It is well suited for free enterprise growth with convenient air and sea transportation to the rest of Latin America, has an outstanding financial district, and good commercial development infrastructure.
And there's the canal, presently undergoing a multi-billion-dollar expansion. When completed in 2014, the waterway's capacity will be doubled and allow much bigger cargo ships.
"Panama possessive an entrepreneurial spirit and a vision for becoming the trade hub of the Americas," explains Jaymie Forrest, SCL managing director. "Panama is poised for growth and development in the required supporting logistics services.”
A bilingual workforce is another plus, she added, along with Panama's Colon Free Zone, a manufacturing, warehousing, and re-export center that is the second-largest free-trade zone in the world after Hong Kong.
But for all of Panama's hard assets, it lacks the high level of integration necessary for trade-hub status. There is lack of logistics services and supporting infrastructure such as public warehousing, temperature controlled faculties, logistics technology and the human capital experienced in supply chain operations. This is a good opportunity for Georgia Tech to transfer knowledge and apply value.
A value assessment to determine priorities in terms of infrastructure improvement will be one of the center's top orders of business. Ongoing improvements in logistics and the application of relevant new technologies will ensure Panama's competitiveness and build its stature as a trade hub.
Besides the immense economic advantages for Panama, a world-class trade hub, there is also expected to provide new opportunities for U.S. companies serving the logistics industry and, perhaps most importantly, boost American exports.
"We manufacture more products by value than any other country in the world," said Ratliff. "Many of these products are exportable, but they're made by small- and medium-size enterprises that simply don't have the capabilities to export to small countries." Nor is it economically worthwhile for these companies to develop and maintain individual trade relationships with separate Latin American countries representing markets of just four or five million people each, he added.
Typically, government-sponsored trade assistance is limited to marketing and does not address logistics needs, transportation, value-added product-support services and a host of key elements that constitute the practical demands of international trade. The Panama Center will be designed to meet these needs while providing, in effect, a single point of access for these smaller markets.
"If we're going to increase exports, which everyone believes is a good idea, then we have to make it so that exporting to a number of small countries is the same as exporting to one large country," Ratliff explained.
As the largest research group in the world focused on supply chain and logistics, SCL is the ideal partner for Panama's trade-hub development. In recent years, SCL has leveraged its traditional expertise to embrace issues surrounding international trade. SCL founded The Logistics Institute (TLI) Asia-Pacific in 1998 at the request of the government to improve logistics education. Based in Singapore, the center supports Singapore's Asian trade hub with research, education, and consulting expertise in global logistics and supply chain management. The learning’s from TLI-Asia Pacific offers a template for Panama in many ways.
In Central America, SCL established a regional presence in 2009 with its Trade-Chain Innovation and Productivity Center, which opened in Costa Rica to support increasing trade exports and improving logistics performance while supporting some of the countries strategic initiatives and planning investments. In particular this center is focused on food exports and preparing for the challenges of traceability and meeting the forthcoming US food safety regulations.
The Panama center is expected to serve as a springboard for logistics innovation, education and research throughout the Americas, according to Forrest.
SCL's emerging leadership role in international trade also dovetails with Georgia Tech's 25-year strategic plan, which calls for leveraging Tech's global engagement as a means of securing a larger international footprint. Logistics was identified as one of four high-potential industry sectors warranting particular emphasis in research and industry partnerships. The other sectors are energy, healthcare, and transportation.
"What Panama wants to do and what we want to do are very compatible," Ratliff said. "They have all the right pieces -- we'll help bring them all together."
