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RIO DE
JANEIRO—The Inter-American Development Bank approved a
loan of as much as $400 million to finance an expansion
of the Panama Canal, a project aimed at making the
waterway more efficient and passable to larger ships.
The loan
will be made to the Panama Canal Authority, which plans
to finish the $5.25-billion project, the largest
nonenergy infrastructure project in Latin America, by
2014, the centennial of the canal’s opening, spokesman
Peter Bate said.
About 5
percent of the world’s seaborne freight passes through
the canal, which allows ships to pass between the
Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. When it opened in 1914,
it cut the sea distance from New York to San Francisco
by about 7,800 miles, according to the book Ocean
Transportation, by Carl McDowell, Helen Gibbs and E.L.
Cochrane.
The work
will require the construction of a third set of locks
and two new lock complexes with water-saving basins, the
bank said. The Atlantic and Pacific ocean entrances are
to be dredged and the main channel widened and deepened.
The level of Gatun Lake, which provides water for the
canal, will be raised.
About
$2.3 billion, or 44 percent, of the expansion project
will be financed with debt, the Washington-based bank
said. (Bloomberg) |
