Right now, this country still shy of 4 million inhabitants is working on a hundred different real estate mega-projects, including nearly a dozen skyscrapers in the making.

Arriving in Panama brings to mind the picture that many of us have of what construction in Latin America is actually all about. The real-estate boom now sweeping the country is turning around the concept everybody has about a city that's now going to heaven.

This concrete and steel revolution was begotten by Mall and Olloqui, a couple of Spanish developing company that are currently working on the city's two most outstanding urban layouts, alongside a third one being built by U.S. billionaire Donald Trump, who'll build the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower, a 65-floor, 902-feet-tall structure at a price tag of $220 million.

However, the most interesting and controversial project is the Bay Palace, being developed by Spain-based Olloqui group. With 97 floors in all, it's poised to be Latin America's tallest skyscraper. Everywhere you go there are mixed emotions about this megabuck project that has endured holdbacks and taken many twists and turns. Some even look in disbelief at the future of the building.

Mall, another Spanish group, is not lagging behind and has come up with a monumental project of its own: Los Faros de Panama. This is going to be a compound of three skyscrapers that will harbor a five-star hotel, a shopping mall, 1,716 residences and a parking lot for roughly 4,000 vehicles. With a total height of 1,135 feet, it's going to be the world's tallest residential building. Los Faros will be lodged in the area where Punta Pacifica, Costa del Este, Punta Paitilla and San Francisco all meet. A set of watchtowers resembling lighthouses will be built on the top floors, rigged out with decks offering breathtaking views of vessels waiting for their turns to run through the Panama Canal.

BUILDING FEVER In the San Francisco, Costa del Este, Punta Pacifica, Amador and Punta Paitilla areas, construction works of Panama's largest real-estate projects are underway. The price of every square meter there is in the neighborhood of $1,700 to $3,500. According to Panama's Construction Chamber, back in 2005 these projects cranked out as many as $995 million worth of investment money and probably peaked $1.2 billion last year.

It must be said, though, that this building boom is no stranger to the rest of the country. The entire Atlantic coast and such areas as Cerro Punta, Valle de Anton, Sora, Playa Blanca, Altos de Apis, Archipelago de Las Perlas and Isla Viveros are home to some fifty projects that comprise lovely countryside houses of up to 6,458 square feet apiece. Hotels, clubs, casinos and rural compounds are also all the rage across Panama.

This politically stable country is now flexing its financial muscles and luring large inflows of tourists. It's out of the Caribbean hurricane beltway and it doesn't endure earthquakes or significant tremors. This much explains why so many people are looking to this fiscal and building safe haven in a bid to go to heaven.