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Battle for the Panama Canal

September 14, 2006
Panama Canal
In two months, on October 22, the Panamanians will take part in the referendum on a vital for the country issue: whether to widen the Panama Canal or not?

Seemingly, what are the problems: economic efficiency of inter-ocean route has broken all the records. During the last, 2005 year, the Canal brought the profit of 1 billion and 200 million US dollars to the state treasury. And the tendency to increase the profit from its use is maintained.

Nevertheless, the voices that the Canal is rapidly getting old and by 2010-2013 it will have lost its attraction and use for the sea shipping companies are more and more frequently heard in Panama. Emergence of super container carriers of «Emma Maersk» type (397 m long and 56 m wide) - is an alarming signal for the Panamanian authorities and the Panama canal administration. «Emma Maersk» does not fit into the canal shipping lock and therefore uses alternative sea routes. It is quite logically to expect that there will appear more and more such ships and they will dominate in the world ocean.

The problem seems to be quite clear. Those 2,130,000 Panamanians that will come to ballot-boxes should unanimously say «yes».

But just the other way round. Opposition sentiments are very strong. About 30% of the Panamanians are not going to take part in the referendum. And the reasons are numerous. Some think that all the «event» is conceived by the ruling party headed by M. Torrijos as an excuse to prolong his mandate for another period. Others think that they will gain nothing from increase of the Canal efficiency: «we, they say, don't know what the profit from the Canal is spent for now and moreover, will never learn where it will go in future». There are also such people, who are confident that the major portion of financing of construction of the third string of locks for super ships will be «borrowed» from the peoples' pocket.

The opposition parties just add fuel to the fire, pointing that there are no completed designs for the Canal modernisation and therefore, the mentioned expenditures of 6-8 billion dollars are very tentative and understated. It is more realistic to speak about 12-15 billion dollars and under condition that dollar will not loose its purchasing power.

The issue of investors is arousing a big concern. There is quite a number of those, who want «to lay their paws» on the modernised canal, staring from its former owners – North Americans - to the Colombian drug mafia that (despite the «Colombia Plan») saved quite a big financial potential to undertake such a perspective project. That is why, in the course of the nation-wide discussion of the problem «to be or not to be for the Canal», one can frequently hear panicky notes: and if the Canal will be grabbed by some alien greedy hands and Panama will remain high and dry for about 100 years.

The tension around the referendum is getting stronger and nobody undertakes to foresee its results. Maybe that is the reason, why in international and Panamanian mass media more and more frequently there appear the news on alternative projects of canal construction through the Central America. More perseveringly the experts name Nicaragua as the country that is ready to lay «its» canal. There seem to be the money: China is going to invest 20 billion dollars. The figure is not that big for the Peoples Republic. After all, the Chinese leader has promised to invest up to 100 billion dollars into Latin America in the nearest 10 years.

It cannot be ruled out that it is the «Chinese track» that so much concerns the United States, which annually arrange «multilateral» naval exercises on protection of the Panama Canal from different threats, most often imaginary ones.
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