Gian Guido Arditi at the Ron Diplomático facility in Panama City, standing by barrels of aging rum.
Photographer: Rose Marie Cromwell for Bloomberg BusinessweekVenezuela Brain Drain Enriches Panama and Other Neighbors
In Panama, the expats have started more than 5,500 businesses and are contributing more than $200 million a year in taxes and fees.
Under a blazing tropical sun, two of Latin America’s largest rum distillers face off across the hot tarmac of the Panapark Free Zone. Both are from Venezuela, and both chose Panama as a safe haven from their homeland’s yearslong downward spiral. The industrial park, a 30-minute drive east of Panama City’s business district, is home to at least four other Venezuelan immigrant businesses, including a fabricator of oil drilling machinery, two logistics companies and, the latest arrival, a fruit juice bottler.
The two rum companies—Ron Diplomático and Ron Santa Teresa—operate as repackagers, importing alcohol processed from sugar cane on haciendas in Venezuela, which is aged into rum in wooden casks in Panama until the distilled product can be bottled for export.