Panama Canal Expanded, Opens Bigger and Better

 In Panama City, the people celebrated the first super giant ship to pass through the new expanded Panama Canal.  The work of 40,000 workers in expanding and creating locks to handle some of the largest container ships on earth were filled and as thousands of people cheered the giant 984 long Cosco Shipping ship, from China passed through. 

The 102 year old canal was "improved" to handle ships carrying up to 14,000 containers, known as neo-Panamax ships, at a cost of $5.4 billion dollars.  For years there have been rumors of the Chinese working on a wider and deeper canal that is to be a "Chinese alternative" built and financed by China in the works. BootheGlobalPerspectives has written on this subject and even seen in depth plans of the Chinese venture. It may still be in the planning stage, but this expansion of the Panama Canal certainly changes that possibility. 

This expansion of the Panama Canal has important economic impacts on jobs and new development of ports in the USA. In the United states,  ports have quietly investing billions to expand shipping facilities to accommodate the new giant "mega" container ships. For example, ports near Houston, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and New York confide that ocean shipping ports contribute billions of dollars to the economy. 

The Panama Canal route saves time, money and risk factors and a 12 hour passage through the canal connecting the Pacific and Atlantic, John Feeley the US Ambassador to Panama was there and said:

"This wonder of engineering is a grand accomplishment for the people of Panama, it is an expansion that will reconfigure, permanently, the map of the global shipping industry."