PTI has put together a list of the top five Panama Canal facts, based on past, present and future developments.
The canal is set to be completed in early 2016, and has already received a massive amount of support, having had around 45,000 people visit the ongoing expansion project in recent months.
Here is a list of the top facts:
- At around 77km in length, a total journey through the canal can take around 15 hours, half of which is spent waiting in traffic.
- If the original canal was built today it would cost approximately US$33 billion to complete, the expansion project has totalled over $5 billion.
- It took a total of three attempts to finish the Panama Canal; the final attempt was overseen by then US President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904.
- $9 trillion worth of trade travels through the canal each year, interlinking 1,700 ports in 160 countries.
- Once the expansion is completed, the canal will have two new sets of locks, one on the Pacific side and the other on the Atlantic side, creating a new transit lane for accommodating 13,000 TEU post-Panamax vessels.
