Posted on 09/28/2002 12:52:50 AM PDT by kattracks
PANAMA CITY, Panama Sept. 28 — Nearly two years after Panama took control of its famous canal, it is launching new rules, starting with a higher toll for ships taking the 50-mile shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Ships crossing through the canal will be charged an additional 8 percent toll starting Tuesday, followed by a 4 percent hike in July 2003.
The new rates are part of the canal administration's plans to increase capacity and expand to accommodate modern ships, which are much larger than the ones steered through the locks a generation ago.
Loaded ships will pay $2.80 per ton for the first 10,000 tons and $2.78 per ton for the second 10,000 tons. Unloaded ships will pay less.
It is the first rate increase since Panama took over administration of the canal on Dec. 31, 1999.
"The canal is our most important asset," administrator Alberto Aleman Zubieta told The Associated Press. "We must charge the value of the service."
Last year, income from crossings and other services provided by the canal came to $800 million.
Aleman Zubieta said that since its inauguration in August 1914, the canal "basically functioned as a form of subsidy for U.S. commerce," with low tolls that gave the United States, the biggest user, a competitive edge. The canal was built and run by the United States until 1999.
"This non-profit policy was of absolutely no benefit to Panama," said Fernando Manfredo, former assistant canal administrator under the United States.
Panama began running the canal like a for-profit business, and with that came plans to remain competitive.
The canal has not changed since its construction. A system of locks allows ships to be lifted to canal level at one end and then lowered on the other side.
The system has served well for more than 80 years, but the locks must be expanded to handle bigger ships. Ships wider than 106 feet or longer than 965 feet cannot pass through the locks.
"There is a tendency in the industry to move toward the larger and wider ships," Aleman Zubieta said. Panamax are the largest ships that the locks can hold, with a few inches to spare on either side.
The canal expansion is clear, but the financing is not. However, Aleman Zubieta is confident that the funds can be found. The estimated cost is between $8 billion and $10 billion.
"What we want to do is keep Panama as a preferential route, as a natural supply point," he said.
Aleman Zubieta maintains that the canal itself, as a corporation, must assume the loan.
"Panama cannot assume that type of debt. The project must have its own merits," he said.
He added that international financing corporations have shown willingness to provide the funds.
But Manfredo said the expansion project has been around for a decade, and that studies have not been completed.
An expansion of the canal would require an expansion of Lake Gatun, which supplies the large amounts of water dumped into the oceans every time ships passes through. People living around the water basin would also have to be relocated.
Aleman Zubieta says several improvements have been made under Panamanian administration.
He pointed to the widening of the Gaillard Cut, the canal's narrowest point, from 500 feet to 630 feet, thus allowing for more flexible traffic flow.
The 26 locomotives used to pull the ships through the locks also have been replaced at a cost of nearly $2 million each.
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Although the Taiwan Nannies like to ignore it (with "China has no landing craft" diatribes), Taiwan has one of the biggest ports in the world, and it its easy to roll on in from the north end of the island at Tamshui. In fact they could take over the metro at Tamshui and ride into downtown Taipei no problem.
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