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Panama surpasses the United
States in Canal Income
In six years of Panamanian
management of the Interoceanic
Canal, this country´s earnings
will surpass in 2006 the amount
collected by the United States
in 85 years, a cause of pride
for many Panamanians.
The income of 455 million
dollars expected in 2006 will
increase to two billion dollars
the contribution to the
country´s economy since it
assumed control of the important
route in 1999.
This amount is 16 per cent
higher than that collected by
Washington which held the
management of the interoceanic
waterway from 1914 to 1999 and
collected 1.87 billion dollars
during that time.
According to the Panama Canal
Authority (ACP in Spanish) the
contributions will keep on
increasing due to the high
demand of services of that
waterway.
Jorge Luis Quijano, director of
Maritime Operations of the
company, informed that
investments are required to
modernize and extend the Canal
in a period of five to seven
years, approximately.
The expansion of the Canal will
satisfy the increasing market
and will allow to increase
earnings.
Sectors of the population like a
farmers´ organization in the
province of Coclé, Colon and
Panama, question the expansion
of the Canal, because they
relate this plan to the polemic
reform to the Social Security
Law which raised retirement age
and the number of monthly quotas
required.
They say the government imposed
changes to the Social Security
Law as the ACP approved without
consultation the law signed on
the last day of the presidential
mandate by Ernesto Perez
Balladares that fixes the limits
of the Hydrographic Basin of the
Panama Canal, which includes an
area where more than 500
communities live and work.
The farmers denounce that the
ACP carries out studies for
projects to build dams and
reservoirs, which would bring
about eviction, poverty and
ecological damage.
The farmers´ organization asks
that other alternatives for
modernization of the Canal be
analyzed and not only the one
promoted by the ACP.
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