At this time I would like to welcome everyone to the BLADEX’s Conference Call. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Melanie Carpenter. Ma’am you may begin your conference.

Thank you. Good morning everyone, and welcome to the BLADEX’s Fourth Quarter and Year End 2007 Conference Call on this 20th of February of 2008. This call is for investors and analysts only. If you are a member of the media, you are invited to listen only, but if you have any questions, please follow-up with us after the call. Joining us today from Panama City, are Mr. Jaime Rivera, the Chief Executive Officer of BLADEX and Mr. Carlos Yap, the Chief Financial Officer of BLADEX. Their comments are based on the earnings release issued yesterday. A copy of the long version is available on the website and the new web address is www.bladex.com. Any comments that management may make today may include forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Those comments are based on information and data that is currently available. However, the actual performance may differ due to various factors, and these are cited in the Safe Harbor Statement in the press release. And with that, I will turn it over to Mr. Jaime Rivera for his opening comments. Please go ahead Jaime.

Thank you, Melanie. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, we are delighted to have you join our conference and we thank you and for your time and for your continued interest in BLADEX. The February conference has always been special to me because we get to review the year that was and say a few words about the year that will be. Given our performance in 2007, telling you about it is actually quite straight forward. On the other hand, talking about 2008 in the midst of so much market dislocation, it is a bit more challenging than usual. So, given the state of the markets, I thought I would concentrate my comments on the impact on our business during 2008 of this dislocation. And we will then ask Mr. Carlos Yap to review and add color and detail to the figures for 2007 in the context of what we have done over the last three years. Everything else of course that you might want to know, we can address during the Q&A session. So I thought I would start my comments by going back and reviewing and restating if you will, some of the basics to keep in mind as we move forward. Just what is the vision that has brought us here and that will continue to drive our efforts moving forward. To put it in a few words, we have aimed and we aim to build our growing business geared around a growing market where we enjoy unique competitive advantages. It is as simple as that. The growing market part refers of course to Latin America and it is very close, which are growing, not only in absolute terms but as we have seen also giving rise to more and more product demands and this is how we…

Thank you Jaime and thank you for you for your kind words, it has been really a tremendous experience working with you and I am sure, I will leave BLADEX in great hands. Good morning everyone. Let me briefly walk you through the financial results, which reflect a continued strong performance of our business areas. Fist of all, I would like to highlight the strong financial performance of the bank not only in 2007, but also during the last three years, which have validated our advanced business model and solid business strategy. Operating income increased 83% during 2007. From 2005 through 2007, operating income grew 58% per annum, driving operating ROE from 4.6% in 2005 to almost 12% in 2007. As Jaime mentioned, increasing our ROE remains the focus of our company. This operating earning’s growth was ruined by the steady increase of our commercial portfolio of close to 20% per annum, as seen as a strong demand and the expanded client based mostly in the corporate sector produced better spreads than lending to banks. This helped us to achieve stable margins in a highly creative environment for most part of this period, the other key factor, was the diversification of our earnings, which in the past was heavily dependent on net interest income. Today, it is 65%, mostly due to the successful transformation of the treasury function into a revenue center. This strong overall operating income growth was achieved while maintaining a strong balance with a Tier 1 capital ratio of 21% and generic reserve for trade losses of close to 2% of the commercial portfolio. It is important to mention that the bank has not reported any non-accruing, nor back past loans in the last four quarters. Our liquidity ratio has increased in recent months to 8.4% and…

Thank you Carlos and ladies and gentlemen, we are open to your questions. We are delighted to talk about 2007 or to give you any guidance that we can for 2008. So please go ahead and ask your questions.

(Operator Instructions) Our first question is coming from Fred Morris of JP Morgan.

I had a quick question from the margin, you have touched upon this already but could you tell us again about your guidance for 2008 as you mentioned that funding would be more expensive in 2008, how do you see the margins for the next quarter?

A general statement first, the environment in the market benefits us because although our cost of funding is increasing, we have seen a significantly higher increase in our ability in the past to increase cost for our clients, so in other words, yes our raw materials are becoming more expensive but the pricing we were able to charge for our products is increasing at even faster rates. You saw the figures that Carlos mentioned for the change in spreads during the fourth quarter. Now, what I can tell you is that during the first quarter so far, we have seen that trend, not only to continue to accelerate, our question really is, how long will these trends remain? For budgeting purposes, we are assuming that the spread, as they exist today, we are going to be the ones that will guide those through the end of the year and with those spreads, we are looking at a fairly good year. If spreads continue increasing at just a couple of quarters more, the impact on our net interest revenue the positive impact on our net interest revenue. Even if we were not to grow the balance sheet as a whole would be significant if you run the numbers, based on that, and add on top of the increased spreads, a portfolio growth of somewhere between and 8% and 12%. You will see that 2008, everything else being equal, should prove a very good year for the bank and an improvement over 2007. So the question in our minds really is, how long will I agree to remain sides and we figure another six to seven months to re-price the entire field portfolio.

(Operator Instructions) Our next question is coming from Titolo Barlow from Deutsche Bank.

Could you mention about this new guidance and turn up growth from fees and expenses for 2008? What you are expecting for growth and fees and expenses for this year? ]

Basically, what we said was the investment of fees, during the fourth quarter we had an increase and decreased these levels for fees should remain for the rest of 2008 and the addition increase should come from two sources, one is our asset management fund, which we are growing now, we are starting to market to investors and from factoring. Basically, the results of that would be mostly in second half and in terms of factory Mostly, I guess in 2009.

To add color to that, I kind of mentioned that before. It does not take much in the way of assets on the management for it to make a significant impact on our fee income line. We are starting to sell in Europe as we speak. We have our team in Europe today. By the time we meet in April, we will be able to give you a better estimate of what we expect in terms of volume. Interest as I have said before has been quite significant but it will take us three months to see how much that interest translates into how much assets on their management for us. The summary of the question is assumed for the purposes of your modeling. We will remain at the level of the fourth quarter and by next April we will be able to tell you how much to increase that number based on asset management and factoring. In terms of expenses, our guidance there is basically the operating expenses base we have or the way we look at it is before 2008, we look at it in terms of our operating efficiency, operating efficiency, that is expenses to revenues, now about 35% and basically the guidance, we could give you is that, it is our intention to maintain that 35% business ratio.

(Operator Instructions) Our next question is coming from Arthur Burns with Deltec Asset Management.

Now, that you have talked about how you are not affected at all by the turmoil that is going on in the market. It would seem to me that there are opportunities for you because you have liquidity, where a lot of other people don’t and your balance sheet is relatively unlevered and I know the company got in trouble before and you maybe being extra cautious. But wouldn’t this be a time to lever up a little bit and take a little bit more on than you are currently doing and I guess my question is what are your targets for leverage?

Mr. Burns that is of course a very sound and a very difficult question at the same time. If you allow me, because it is an important subject, I will give you somewhere of a long answer, would you allow me or give me the benefit of that?

I welcome that as long as you allow me one followup.

Okay, the first part of your statement is absolutely in line with what we think. We are ideally positioned to take or make use of a number of very good opportunities that are arising in the market and we are being very opportunistic about the way we go up out of business. There are some wonderful opportunities, very, very good intermediation opportunities that are arising in the market with clients that we know. Operations that are specially attractive. And we are intending to make use of that both in our commercial portfolio and in our training operations. So, your thinking is precisely aligned with ours. Then covering the question of leverage, if we take a look at the last three years, you have seen how we have continuously or improved or leveraged the company. Putting it in other words, our capitalization has diminished. It is still very strong at Tier 1 covering around 20%. The question is, as we look at leverage and we look at this very carefully. Capitalization from our perspective metrical field are sometimes and most of them are conflicting work with it. First, capital has to protect you against unexpected losses and I think that the experience of a number of things in the market over the last few months that thought they were adequately capitalized speed to the great cost that our company can incur if it gets the asset to that question, wrong. We think that given the type of business that we are on, the type of which that we intent to run. In 2008, we are adequately capitalized to withstand any unexpected loss. Secondly, capital has to fuel your growth and we believe that the capital that we currently have gives up the strength and the whereabouts and the ammunition to fuel to growth that we see in the market in 2008. And certainly you have to balance a lot of those considerations we have returned. It is clear that increasing ROE becomes more difficult as you increase capitalization. So, we are balancing that as we continuously review. I have two comments to make. You have seen over the last three years, the leverage of the company increased. All other things being equal and you probably, you will, you should expect to see that process continuing unless of course things change. If great levels in the region increase or great levels in our markets, or our abilities increase beyond the point where we see them going, we will slow down on this situation until the situation returns to normal. But I stand back on what I have been saying now for the last three years, in time, all of the things being equal. You will feel this company’s level as we turn to what had been historical terms of capitalization, somewhere in the area of 14% to 16%. Does that give you a flavor for what you wanted to know?

Absolutely, and my follow-up question would be, to go from the 21% to 22% , 14% to 16%, is there demand out there for what you offer at rates that are acceptable and risk levels that are acceptable for you to gear up that way or do you think that you have been doing all you can in the market you are in.

The business growth in our business has not slowed down, after five months of market upheaval the business flows have not slowed down, competition has diminished and that of course a lot of to be much more choosy about the type of business that we do. We do however face a liquidity constraint. There is more business out there for us to do right now, than the amount of liquidity that is available to us, particularly because we want to grow while keeping a very solid liquidity position. The answer to your question is, yes, there is more than enough business for us to do out there, the condition under which we can do the business much more favorable to as when they were in the past. But we do have a liquidity constraint that has not been a problem so far again during the fourth quarter, we grew the business and we improved liquidity. But then again, we will have to manage and as the year goes by and if liquidity tightens even further, what will probably happen is that we will do fewer deals at higher margins and probably do the same amounts of money or maybe even a bit more.

If the year goes as you hoped, is it fair to assume that the dividend policy stays as it has been?

It is better to assume that the company’s philosophy regarding – I think it is improving over the last four years. With increasing operating earnings, we will increase the dividends. We will remain in place.

Our final question is coming from Maxwell Vanderbilt with UBS.

My question is, in your earnings report where you have, BLATEX asset management, does that defer operating income, is that trading?

Yes, most of it is trading, as for the year comes in at $18 million and you referenced that your operating interim increased by $18 million, mostly driven by trading.

We have some net interest income of course and expenses, which are small but most of the revenues are trading income. That trading income, on our proprietary fund and it is that fund that we are offering to third parties, starting now.

Okay, the other question, I believe you mentioned earlier that avoided the bullet of the sub prime mess but I am just wondering if you have any exposure in that collateralized set of obligations? Excuse me, credit default insurance is really what I am looking for.

No, we don’t. In fact, to tell you frankly, when this old message exploded, I actually have to learn what some of these instruments consisted of, because we have never been exposed to CDO’s and alike, and so, no, nothing regarding insurance, nothing regarding CDO’s, nothing regarding any of the concerns that I worry in the market. We did look for some other things that we did, we have two loans, I can tell you. We have two loans, where we enjoy insurance coverage not that most of the companies needed them but they wanted to get a better rate so they got insurance coverage, we looked into the insurance coverage, and into the insurance company and those are two very strong insurance companies, nothing to do with the (inaudible). And that is it. That is really it.

I appreciate that, I think a lot of us have been going to school for the last week, trying to figure out what the boys have been doing for the last two years.

I have to do the same thing because, to tell you frankly, we have to review all or our counterpart facilities to “devoice”.

We have a follow-up question coming from Fred Morris with JP Morgan.

Actually my question has been answered, thank you.

Thank you, we have no further questions at this time, I like to turn the call back over to Jaime Rivera for any closing remarks.

Thank you. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I realized that many of you, who are sellers, analysts, and rating agencies, has been with us since the Board of Directors gave me the privilege of becoming the CEO of this company in 2004 and during this time, we have achieved a remarkable progress, keeping the soul and the purpose of the company intact, while changing its form dramatically, to adapt it to market trends that we correctly identified four years ago. In this sense I think that 2007 clearly showed that our strategy is sound and that it results in steady improvements in our earnings deposit. And it is based on this strong track record that we stand as we look forward to 2008 and beyond. Our track records speak to our ability to fulfill the promise that we have been making to shareholders and the market alike since 2004. And with that, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to again thank you for your attention, I wish you the best during the coming three months and look forward to our next conference. Thank you very much.

Thank you. This does conclude today's BLADEX conference call. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.