 Good morning. We are here with candidate Juan Carlos Varela from the political party called Panameñista. The format is going to be very similar than the two previous ones, the one that we had for example with Jose Domingo Arias who is running first according to the surveys and we also had Juan Carlos Navarro previously. And in this occasion we have Juan Carlos Varela broadcasting live in the internet. The World Economic Forum on Latin America seeks to give room to give a voice to all the candidates like you that are the first runners up in order to allow you to express your points of view. If you agree let's begin with the obvious Mr. Varela. You are a little bit behind during the third place but you're also in a position of competition. What are the basic policies that you want to strengthen and to promote in case you're favored with the vote? Well the most important for me in terms of policy in Panama and Latin America is the challenge that we have to have men and women to transit into the public life, to face the problems of the population, to strengthen the political people in class of Panama and the region, to face the problems in terms of safety, security, education, public health, drinking water and the challenges that the city of Panama and the republic itself has. In this regard we come with the experience of the private center but it's important to leave the private sector when you cross into the public life. You cannot bring your private and economic agenda into the public life because it deviates from the public's attention. So our challenge is to change politics for it to be a service and not a business. If you want to do businesses we have a country with security in your investment but we want justice to work, to be transparent, to have security for the investor, transparency in the public acts. So we cannot come into the public life with a personal and private agenda or with a party focused agenda. For me it's not important just to win the elections which we are but it's also important to transform politics and focus it on the issues, the problems that society is facing. Panama has a challenge which is to ensure that this economic growth to represent quality of life and sustainable development for our citizens. And that is done through what you have mentioned, a constituency, an assembly. It's a very radical position is to re-found Panama. Well you do this with men and women of state that comply and fulfill the laws. I can move in these five years of government and comply with my promises without having to change the constitution but I want to leave as a legacy to the future generations a model of the constitution that does not allow abuses that go against the interest and the benefits of the society. So I think it's an important change for the next mandate or the next time in office and we want to give a good example in this. Specifically in some of the topics where you have been very vocal in, in terms of the idea of service, public service and investment for the people and all the people, we saw yesterday a debate in terms of tourism and also the logistics part of the economy. Can you talk to us a little bit about that? Tourism represents 10% of our current economy, almost $4 million to generate thousands of positions of employment and our geographic position calls us to develop it more, to develop both logistics and tourism. The success of the Panamanian business or company COPPA in the region is helping us to appeal to a strong tourism competing with Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and it's driving Panama so we need to develop the hotel structure in the interior or the rural sector of the country because we only have 10,000 rooms in the interior side and 20,000 in the city so we need to strengthen the interior or the countryside and my policy goes towards that. Also basic sanitation, drinking potable, drinking water, efficient collection of trash and waste and education led to technical experts in different industries as in tourism, languages, engineering for the citizen to be competitive in the world. Our position geographically calls Panamanians of the 21st century to be a civilization that's going to contribute to the convergence of Latin America to be a point of gathering of economic and social system that preaches with its example. So tourism is going to play a frontline role and if you see the story of Panama in this, for example, is a firm of Panama which is a history of 111 years of the economy in Panama talking about the free zone in Cologne, the law that strengthens the banking center, the management of the Panama Canal and the Tokumen Airport. We consider all these strengths but the next pillar without a doubt is tourism. The next pillar that we see coming is mining but mining we have to pay attention to the projects that are being developed in the province of Cochle. If they cannot prove an environmental, social and economic balance then we're not going to push forward with that. That number that you mentioned 20,000 rooms and hotels in the city of Panama and 10,000 outside or the countryside leads me to the next question which has to do with decentralization. Here, for example, in the World Economic Forum there was a session that had to do with the future of governance and one of the scenarios that we talked about was precisely the city-state. It seems as though Panama is a city-state, more than 50 percent of the population lives here, 20,000 rooms in that tourism plan and only 10,000 in the countryside. Now in terms of decentralization, why don't you expand on this? Well, the first thing is the balance, the equilibrium of what the people vote for in the elections. If this is not respected, the governments focus on concerts at the end of the year and Christmas parades and they do not focus on the underlying issues that the population needs to be addressed. So regardless of the political party, there are demands in their rights and to manage the resources to have community-based plans as well. A president has so many topics. If you have to step in to see waste and collection and culture and sports in parks, you shouldn't have to do that when you have 72 mayors and different community representatives. You cannot punish them because they're not part of your party. You need to allow them to have the credibility of their people because they were elected. So you need to strengthen local governments for them to address community issues and the legislative assembly is going to be focused on planning for the country in the long term and for the aggressive progress in the private sector in terms of development and infrastructure would advance. But the public sector is not behind for them to push at the same time in terms of energy, waste management and others. I was in Barcelona, for example. I saw how 22 municipalities have a waste management plan that is efficient. We have that project in Panama to close all the slums and the dumps and to have waste management centers and also to generate electricity through them. Yes, that's correct. Let's talk about energy in the interconnection with Colombia. We understand that this is one of the plans that you are promoting and yesterday we learned here in the World Economic Forum that there is a gas pipe project from Mexico to Guatemala. So it appears as though that America as a hemisphere is walking towards self-sufficiency in terms of energy. What is Panama going to do and with whom and how? First, we're going to establish the project, which is a project of state. I worked on it as a chancellor of Panama. It had to do with the interconnection with Colombia, which allows us to bring 600 megas and this allows us to have 30 to 40 percent of the energy capacity of the country. Companies as Medellin, which is the model of public management in Colombia, they are constructing a hydro of 2,600 megas and Panama has a commitment of bringing 600 megas of that energy. Because of economic interest that go beyond the republic, it responsibly that interconnection was disrupted. But we have spoken to the chancellor and President Santos and as president of the commission, Carlos Hidaldo, we have decided that we're going to continue forward with this immediately. Also in the hydro electric plants, there's only one plant in Chan 1 and another one in Boca Sertora that has 300 megas. The river is already impacted and the second impact down the river gives us an additional 300 megas. All of this gives us 900 megas, which give Panama the energy security that it needs in the next years. Now, what we can extract from the public enterprise is the Medellin. We can also apply it to the waste water management system. But it's important to do so transparently. We cannot suspend the connection with Colombia to give value to a gas concession that supposedly is going to be done. But it's rather a political speculation. Mr. Candidate, we talk about Colombia. Allow me to go to another neighbor, a neighboring country that has vocably mentioned that there are problems with Panama with the current government and not only with Panama, but also it seems that Venezuela is having an attitude, an opposing attitude with several neighbors as well. What will your policy be facing the reality that Nicolás Maduro is there? He is the president of Venezuela. You said that you look competitive. I'm not really just looking competitive. I am a competitive person. My life is a challenge. I was a chancellor with Nicolás for 26 months. We are friends. I saw a very strong change between the chancellor and the president. I did not like his declaration last night when he said, when he used strong words, making reference to military. But Nicolás Maduro has a dialogue. I represent, I mean, I recognize the position of Panama to represent the rights of human rights. I think that it's an error to be isolated in the organization of the American state. Panama has to be a mediator country. If you become part of the conflict, you lose your position as a mediator. I keep my position that the dialogue is, the position as mediators is necessary. And we should work on that role. I hope to see Nicolás Maduro here in June when I take position of the government, position as a president. But Panama is going to be a mediator and defend human rights and for Venezuela to be able to have freedom of speech. And we seek to defend that, really, defend that figure of freedom of speech. And if there is a conflict between two people, you cannot put in friction situations of state where you have commercial aspects and topics in common. To close the embassy in Panama is a huge error for many Venezuelans that live here. It's a relationship between two states, but also between many people here in your country. Many people have decided to invest. People from Venezuela include included. Now, how do you see the way that immigration is being managed, not only for businesses, but also for professionals and also of unqualified labor? Well, I'm a grand sum of Spanish immigrants. And I am in favor, as long as there is good control in safety and security, we have to protect our logistical system in Sonalivre, which is a free zone, to Kumen Airport and the ports. So it's never used by organized crime. I'm in favor of migration, but we have to regulate so that we ensure that people that are not connected to criminal drug networks and others to use that platform and not to use this area to transit into the United States in other countries. We have a great challenge in terms of the vocational education in our country. Our economy is creating every day better jobs and jobs that require greater capacity, greater training, for example, in English, tourism, financial center, logistics, call centers, maritime center, they require English and also the technical capacity in construction in cement workers, architects, carpenters, welders. We have a big challenge as a country to continue training technical experts or in vocational areas. In Panama, 180,000 people do not finish their high school, but if we're able to drive them to complete their high school and to get a better job with vocational careers, we are going to improve a lot the problem of safety. Let's go back to the challenge of safety and security and organized crime. We had Professor Fernandez de Castro from Mexico. He's a friend and founder of foreign affairs. And he's also the author of a report on criminal activity in the region. This is a topic that is one that the Mexicans feel very connected to. But I think that it would be also for many of the countries in Latin America and North America, for example, the United States has a big internal violence issue. So none of the countries are free from this. Panama, as a fiscal paradise that was in the mid-level rankings of transparency, how are you going to address this? As a chancellor of the country, I established on my second day of work a defense commission for financial issues. We negotiated almost 14 double fiscalization or double taxation agreements. And with technology, that is a tendency without a doubt we will have to protect our financial system for it to be used for what it's intended to be used enough for illicit aspects. So we're not going to go back, we're going to go forward. We've already done that a lot in 26 months and we're going to continue that direction. Okay, we're about to finish because definitely the president of my country, Enrique Peña Nieto, is signing at this time as we speak an agreement with Panama. And he's going to have a plenary session and we would like to invite everyone to be there with us. But allow me to provide enough time for you to have a conclusion with what you began with, which is education and also with social programs. I see you very active, very visible as one of your priorities. And now that you've mentioned your position as a chancellor, I also read that you seek to want to make Panama an international organization center. Which ones are you going to bring a salapse or which ones reach that goal 100% students finish elementary school. We need to have this coverage at schools, the capacity of new schools, follow the vocational model of schools in Singapore. We need vocational school to be a first world, not second world have closed the gaps between the private and the government sector sector and prepare the future generations. It's it will be a very human government. We have just approved $1 million highway up to the beat. They don't have drinking waters. The schools do not have lead trains. There are no appropriate roads. We need to focus a government human government to have a public investment more than $15 million in the investment services. The workers who have made this beautiful city of Panama we enjoy today in this forum. When they get back to their communities have find safe neighborhoods without sewage proper sewage systems and to have a very human dwellings. We want to impact 300,000 dwellings that do not have basic sanitary toilets with 100% drinking water, zero lead trains. And if we get to 80, 85 or 90%, at least we reach part of the goal. We need to build sewage systems provide drinking water to the population. The water issues quite delicate. We are in on April 3rd. And the levels of water are very low. The populations that depend on the wells have problems on the Cologne areas. And the challenge for men and women to get part form part of the public life and reach that progress of the private sector and put the public services to their service and the efficiency of the private sector is the most important issue in Panama. But for that I end up as I started, we need to cross that border and focus 100% on looking after the the what the population needs and not for our personal benefit. Thank you very much. Very good luck. Thank you. I would like to come for your first UN assembly if you are president. Thank you very much. Thank you.