The expansion of the Panama Canal, which will be inaugurated this Sunday, will bring best rates for exporters, as they will have an increased access to Asia.
Panama is building a third set of locks with two new complexes in the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the Panama Canal, as well as a third lane for large vessels, where each lock complex will have three steps .
Since the Canal will allow the passing of ships that have nearly three times more capacity than the ships that currently cross it, the rates for export to the United States, Europe, and Asia, the fastest growing region in the world, will be more competitive.
The Canal, which currently only allows ships that transport less than 5,000 containers, will accept the transit of vessels transporting up to 14,000 twenty-foot containers.
The expanded connectivity at low cost means that different types of export products, including agricultural products such as pineapple and banana, could reach new markets.
The current regional logistics would also change in 2018, when the APM terminal in Limon starts operations, as there will be no need for freight transhipment to access distant markets because the Canal will accommodate vessels of up to 8,500 containers.
Costa Rica's privileged position in the continent would allow it to become an important free zone in the region within a few years, from where goods can be distributed to neighboring countries, thereby reducing the logistics costs that some territories in the region currently have.
The Canal's annual traffic is expected to increase from 350 million to 600 million tons a year.
Source: larepublica.net