Panama City, Panama
With fireworks and Panamanian flags flying, a Chinese ship crossed the Sunday morning the new locks the expanded canal and Panama launched its most ambitious undertaking to improve its economic development despite the vagaries of world trade.
Pulling by several tugs, the container ship “Cosco Shipping Panama” entered the new locks of Agua Clara on a cloudy morning in that sector terminal of the province of Colon, 80 kilometers north of the capital.
a band received the boat to the tune of issues related to the struggle for sovereignty over the canal, while thousands of Panamanians, including the relatives of the seven workers killed in accidents during work it were, waved flags of the country.
“This is a route that has been used for 500 years, one can not change history,” said President Juan Carlos Varela to reach the new locks and referring to the tradition of the isthmus as a point of trade. “It is the route that unites the world,” he said.
Panama launches finally opening a mega-project, at an initial cost of 5,250 million dollars, which aims to double the channel capacity centenary and compete with other routes, such as Suez, Egypt.
the play opened almost two years later than planned due to construction delays and conflicts over claims overruns, but the government and the canal authorities organized a massive party for the occasion.
“It’s a unique experience, a great achievement,” he told the Associated Press Felicia Peñuela, a housewife of 62 years native of the province of Colón who he rose early to be at the ceremony. “Panama shows the world that despite being a small country, can do great things.”
The modern Chinese boat, 48.2 meters wide (158 feet) and 300 meters long (984 feet), which is now able to cross the canal, was secured by canal workers in the lower or first chamber, giving way to a ceremonial act of the authorities, that the dead workers were recalled.
the organizers launched fireworks at the time when the first lock gate open.
After the ceremony, the boat continued its process of lockage to continue transit by sea trench towards the new Pacific locks, where the main event was mounted with the presence of tens of thousands of people and several heads of state, including leaders of Chile and Taiwan.
Panama embarked on expansion channel eight years after the waterway, through which 6% of world seaborne trade, was transferred by the United States, December 31, 1999, and a century after the Americans opened through a ditch 80 kilometers between the Atlantic and Pacific pulled one back to the ships.
“This new transit route is the tip of the iceberg of an ambitious plan to reconvert to Panama in the logistics center of the Americas” said manager Jorge Luis Quijano channel during the event. “Y represents a significant opportunity for the countries of the region to improve its infrastructure, grow their exports.”
The opening comes, however, at a time when the world shipping is depressed due to the fall of oil prices, an economic slowdown in China, which is the second largest customer for the channel, and other factors affecting traffic waterway and income.
Although the authorities plan to increase the trade between Asia and ports on the Atlantic coast of the United States, doubts remain because not all ports are equipped to handle the huge cargo ships Neo-Panamax class.
the net volume of cargo through the channel of the east coast of Asia to the United States fell by 10.2% in 2015, according to official statistics.
Meanwhile, the Suez Canal in Egypt recently reduced rates to 65% in the transport of large containers in an attempt to keep their traffic.
But Manuel Benitez, deputy administrator of the canal, said they prefer to see things future and stressed the benefits that would work to the economy worldwide, cutting time and costs to large vessels. He said that they have already made 166 reservations ships that will use the extended route in the coming months
“These are cyclical issues;. the market recompose will return to and when we go back into the cycle above, the shipping is going to make money and the Panama canal will make money, “predicted
Since its transition to Panamanian control. in late 1999, the channel has generated nearly 10,000 million in direct revenue the Central American nation and is responsible for about 40% of GDP, due to the activities carried around.
Originally planned to open in October 2014 to coincide with the centenary of the channel , the new locks can accommodate ships carrying up to three times the load of the largest that use the old structures.
Grupo Unidos por el Canal, the consortium led by the Italian company Salini Impregilo and Spanish Sacyr, delivered the finished work on Friday, although a number of claims remain pending cases of alleged cost overruns estimated at more than 3,000 million dollars.
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