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Panama vows to implement shipping tolls |
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Tuesday, 02 February 2010 |
 The administrator of the Panama Canal has vowed to press ahead with a programme of steep toll increases despite complaints that they are aggravating the shipping market crisis.
Alberto Aleman Zubieta told the Financial Times that traffic through
the canal, which links the Pacific and Atlantic oceans via an 80km
waterway, had held up well during 2009 despite sharp toll rises.
Figures released last month showed passages through the canal were only
2 per cent lower last year than in 2008.
However, he acknowledged that the mix of traffic had changed sharply.
The proportion made up of container ships, which have faced the biggest
toll increases, has fallen over the past year, while there are higher
numbers of bulk carriers loaded with grain.
The toll increases are to help fund the $5.25bn (3.7bn euros, £3.3bn)
expansion of the canal, which will double capacity and hugely increase
the size of ship able to use the waterway. The project, due to be
completed for the canal’s centenary in 2014, would be completed on time
and under budget, Mr Aleman Zubieta said.
He argued that excessive ship ordering and a slump in demand for their
services, rather than high canal tolls, had created container lines’
problems.
The canal’s revenues so far this year are 10 per cent above last year’s level because of the toll increases.
Following its takeover of the running of the canal 10 years ago, Panama
has sought to maximise earnings from the waterway – the tiny country’s
main strategic resource – and develop it into an important logistics
hub. The US, which built the canal and ran it for its first 85 years,
sought only to cover operating costs.
The largest container ships able to use the canal now pay nearly
$320,000 for each transit, after tolls for the vessels more than
doubled over the past five years. Denmark’s Maersk Line, the world’s
biggest container line and the canal’s largest customer, has been among
users demanding cuts in the tolls.
Source: Financial Times
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