Panama Canal expansion could give a boost to South Florida ports
PANAMA CITY, Panama - Nearly a century after the Panama Canal revolutionized world trade, a massive expansion of the engineering marvel is poised to upend global commerce again, possibly bringing a windfall to South Florida.
This small Central American nation is investing more than $5 billion to double capacity at its water highway for mega-freighters that can't fit. The seven-year expansion will ease all water travel for the fast-rising flow of Asian products to U.S. consumers on the Atlantic coast.
U.S. East Coast seaports, now the biggest canal users, are poised to receive tens of billions of dollars more in Asian freight yearly and thousands more jobs, as a smaller share of Asian cargo moves cross-country by rail or truck from California and the Pacific, port analysts say. The canal expects to roughly double the volume of Asian cargo bound for the U.S. East Coast by 2020 to 83 million tons.
