Although smaller than Santa Catarina and with a population more reduced than that of Greater Belo Horizonte, Panamá is already the third largest operation of Odebrecht in Latin America out of Brazil. The Brazilian contractor became also the largest construction company of the country.
Odebrecht, which did not participate in the competition for the enlargement of the Panama Canal, eventually won almost all other big bids ordered by the Panamanian government.
The company contracted the British architect Norman Foster to make the new terminal of the International Airport of the City of Panamá; constructed the subway of the capital, the first of Central America; made the new coastal road, of 7 km, which snakes through new embankments where are the skyscrapers of the city and which becomes a causeway 2.5 km above the sea.
Odebrecht was still the responsible for the recovery of the historic center of the capital, grounding the wiring and removing the posts between the mansions erected between the 17th and 19th centuries and made the new paving. It also got the reurbanization of declining public housing of the 1960s.
“Even out of the canal, Odebrecht was able to win many bids”, says Arturo Graell, Institutional Relations director of the company in the country. “I was here when we opened the office in 2006, we were four employees”, he says. “Today, we are 5,000.”
RECORD SUBWAY
The subway was launched in record time: in less than three years, a line of 13 km, 6 km underground and 7 km elevated (a bit larger than the Yellow Line of the São Paulo Subway, the construction of which started in 2004) was constructed and opened in 2014.
Two new bids are being targeted by the contractor: the second line of the subway and the remodeling of downtown Colón, the second city of the country, in the Panamanian Caribbean, where a free zone operates, which is a lot poorer than the capital.
In the works of the coastal road and in the recovery of the public housing, Odebrecht constructed a new soccer stadium, called Maracanã – the company took the ex-players Bebeto, Rivaldo, Dunga, Careca and Viola to play there in the opening, in April last year.
It was also one of the sponsors of the new museum designed by Frank Gehry.
Besides this soccer charm offensive, the company sponsors the cleaning of a mangrove in the capital.
Odebrecht is not the single Brazilian company with good businesses in Panama. Embraer sold 26 planes to the local company Copa.
Besides the Brazilians, other neighbors are investing heavily on the country.
The Panamanian government estimation is that 80 thousand Venezuelans have purchased real estates there recently, many of which having moved in the last five years, with the periodic crises of the governments of Chávez and Maduro.
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