Panama wants to adopt Euro currency

Panama would like to introduce the euro as legal tender alongside the US dollar, President Ricardo Martinelli told German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday during a visit to Europe.

"In Panama the currency in free circulation is the American dollar and I told the chancellor we are looking for ways for the euro to become another currency of legal circulation and to be accepted in the Panamanian market," President Ricardo Martinelli told a joint news conference with Merkel in Berlin, according to Huffington Post.

Martinelli provided no details about the switch but he expressed "full confidence" in the German and European economies and said he expected the euro zone debt crisis would soon pass.

Seventeen of the European Union's 27 member states are in the euro zone but euros are also in circulation in a number of non-EU countries, including Kosovo and Montenegro in the Balkans as well as tiny Monaco and Andorra, and in overseas territories.

Panama's dollarised economy - almost 10,000 kilometres from mainland Europe - is one of the fastest growing in Latin America, expanding 10.6 percent last year with help from heavy infrastructure spending including the expansion of the Panama Canal.