Veeramalla Anjaiah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Panamanians recently overwhelmingly approved a US$5.25 billion plan to widen the inter-oceanic Panama Canal, the Panamanian Ambassador to Indonesia said Friday evening
in Jakarta.
Ambassador Raul Antonio Eskildsen said the main objective of the expansion of the canal was to handle giant modern cargo ships, or “post-Panamax” vessels.
“The result of the Oct. 22 referendum shows that 78.05 percent of Panamanian voters approved the plan to build the third set of locks,” Raul told The Jakarta Post.
The planned third lane will be built parallel to the existing two lanes, Raul said. The new lane would accommodate large vessels 336 meters long, 489 meters wide and 15 meters in draft.
Commenting on the outcome of the referendum, Panamanian President Martin Torrijos said in an address to the nation: “Today we have become the masters of our
own destiny.”
Raul said the result sent a clear message to the international community that Panamanians were determined to expand the canal, which was first opened in 1914.
President Torrijos and the Panama Canal Authority said that if it was not expanded now, the 92-year-old waterway would become obsolete by 2012.
Currently, vessels that are too wide or long for the Panama Canal must round Cape Horn to sail between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Raul said construction would hopefully begin late next year. The project is projected to generate 7,000 jobs directly and another 35,000 indirectly, he said.
The expansion is expected to contribute as much as 2.5 percentage points to Panama’s annual gross domestic product and help lift Panama out
of poverty.
Last year, the canal contributed $489 million to Panama’s state budget, the biggest source of income.
It will be Herculean task for a tiny country like Panama to undertake such a large project and around $2.3 billion will be raised through loans or bond issues to be paid back with the revenues from the canal.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported from Miami that Panama is expected to unveil this week its plans for increasing tolls on the Panama Canal to help pay for the waterway’s expansion
“It’s a lot of money, it’s about a third of the economy,” Ricaurte Vasquez, Panama’s minister for canal affairs
said, referring to the cost of the project.
Around 14,000 ships, mostly from U.S., China and Japan, pass through the 80 k.m. waterway every year.
