Panama Canal Says Credit
Crisis Won't Disrupt
Expansion Funding
PANAMA - The Panama
Canal Authority is
confident of winning
loans to fund a us$5.2
billion expansion to
more than triple the
waterway's cargo
capacity, even as the
global credit crisis
cuts access to funds and
threatens growth.
"We have a very
successful financing
package put in place
even in this unstable
financial market,''
Alberto Aleman, the
canal's administrator,
said in an interview in
Tokyo yesterday.
Expanding the
94-year-old canal will
ease congestion and let
larger cargo vessels,
bulk carriers and oil
tankers pass through.
About 27 percent of the
world's container ships
are too big for the
50-mile (80-kilometer)
canal, a figure that
will rise to 37 percent
by 2011, the authority
has said.
So-called panamax ships,
designed specifically to
fit the canal, can carry
4,000 twenty-foot
containers. Expansion
will let cape-size
vessels with as many as
12,600 containers
transit the waterway
linking the Pacific and
Atlantic oceans.
"Ships are getting
bigger and one voyage is
able to deliver a lot
more materials,'' said
Suguru Uchida, spokesman
for Nippon Yusen K.K.,
Japan's largest shipping
line by sales. ``Larger
container vessels and
tankers have already
started to navigate the
Asia-Europe route.''
The authority is seeking
us$2.3 billion in
overseas loans to help
fund the work, including
us$800 million from the
Japan Bank for
International
Cooperation, us$500
million from the
European Investment
Bank, us$400 million
from the Inter-American
Development Bank and
us$300 million each from
the International
Finance Corp. and
Corporacion Andina de
Fomento, according to
its Web site.
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