Cargo Business Newswire

Monday, January 25, 2016

Panama Canal administrator: Expansion will open in June 2016

In an exclusive interview with the American Journal of Transportation, the administrator of the Panama Canal Authority – refuting a statement earlier this week by his second in command – says the expanded canal should be ready for inauguration in June, following delays costing the authority more than a half billion dollars in revenue.

As previously reported in CBN, early this year Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela had said the canal expansion would open in May 2016.

Panama Canal Authority Administrator Jorge L. Quijano told AJOT on Jan. 21 that the opening to traffic of the expanded canal would not be as late as

"early the second part of this year," as stated Jan. 18 by Francisco Miguez, the authority’s executive vice president of finance and administration of the Panama Canal Authority, at the SMC3 Jump Start 2016 conference in Atlanta and reported by AJOT.

"I apologize if that’s what he [Miguez] said," Quijano told AJOT prior to speaking at an American Association of Port Authorities conference in Tampa. "Early May or late May, we should be functional, and maybe June for the inauguration. I firmly believe it’s achievable for us to have inauguration sometime in June."

For more of the AJOT story: www.ajot.com