Employment Generation through the Panama Canal Projects

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The Panama Canal expansion is expected to create 40,000 new jobs during construction of the third set of locks, plus 7000 additional support jobs during the peak years of building. Projected medium and long term economic growth fostered by the expanded Canal and the economic activity produced by Canal revenues will drive Panama into an even more prominent global position.

A Sustainable Future at Lake Gatun

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Gatun Lake is one of the most important portions of the Panama Canal, serving as both the main waterway of the Canal and also a vast reservoir for operating the locks. Each time a ship transits the canal 53 million gallons of water is drained from the lake into the sea, a truly colossal total when combined with the 14,000 other vessel transits per year. Since rainfall is seasonal in Panama the lake is the Canal’s primary source of water storage with the local rainforest helping in water regulation and release.

The Panama Canal Authority

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The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) is the administrative body that runs the Panama Canal. After negotiating the release of the land that became Panama, after eleven years constructing the Canal and after eighty-five years of operation, the United States government handed over control of the Panama Canal to ACP. This happened on December 31, 1999, when a huge crowd gathered at the administration building of the canal for the event.

Building the Panama Canal: A Brief Historical Summary

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The Panama Canal was built between 1904 and 1914 and over the intervening years has provided passage for over 800,000 boats between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The construction of the Panama Canal was one of the world’s greatest engineering projects.

United States engineers excavated over 240 million cubic yards of rock and dirt, and find a place for it and military doctors had to overcome tropical diseases that had killed over 20,000 workers in the French effort to build a canal.

Canal Expansion Update Yields Good News for Panama’s Tourism

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In an address before the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) Logistics Conference in Dallas, Panama Canal Authority (ACP) Administrator/CEO Alberto Alemán Zubieta reported that the much anticipated second canal project is on time and on budget.

Slated for completion in 2014, one hundred after the opening of the existing canal in 1914, today’s expansion project will double the capacity of Panama’s Atlantic to Pacific short cut.