The  fifth round of negotiations on the Panama-China Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in Bejjing  will cover financial services, market access and customs procedures. Talks will run from April 24 to 26 in Beijing.

Néstor Gonzalez, Minister of Commerce and Industries said:"Every day the Panamanian negotiating team will give a progress report and receive feedback from interested parties, as has been done in all previous rounds,"

The Panamanian team will continue negotiating with China to ensure market openings for those products with the greatest potential to be commercialized in the Asian market and generate favorable conditions and legal certainty for those sectors with the greatest potential for investment.

Alberto Alemán, Vice Minister of Foreign Trade and chief negotiator for Panama said that they have made progress on issues related to sanitary and phytosanitary standards, legal issues, electronic commerce, transparency, commercial defense, among others.

In this fifth round, the commercial interests that have arisen from the persistent consultations with the private sector and organized civil society will continue advancing, defending the requested positions, and also safeguarding agriculture, agroindustry and domestic industry, which has been a fundamental principle during the whole process of development of commercial agreement, said Alemán. "Although progress has been made, the agreement is negotiated under the principle of" single commitment ", which implies that nothing is closed until everything is closed,".he said.