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Thursday, November 09, 2006
When the people of Panama voted last month to spend $5.3 billion upgrading their 94-year-old canal, they did so for their own benefit. But the widening of the canal to accommodate today's bigger containerized-cargo ships should also greatly benefit Americans up and down the Eastern Seaboard.
An expanded Panama Canal is expected to reduce the price of imported goods in our region by slashing shipping costs. And it should significantly boost business in East Coast ports.
The Panama project, slated to get under way next year, is designed to double the canal's capacity. A third set of locks will be able to serve today's cargo ships, many of them much larger than the ships in use when the United States first built the canal. (Washington controlled the canal from 1912 until 1999, when it handed over control to Panama.)
The shipping industry sees this as tremendous news. "As far as ... the East Coast is concerned, widening the canal to allow these new ships in will be huge for trade," Walt Mitchell, a vice president with Zim Integrated Shipping Services, told the Savannah Morning News. A large container port in Savannah has been an economic boon for its region.
Up until now, super-sized cargo ships from East Asia have had a hard time getting to the East Coast. Either they have been unloaded on the West Coast and the goods then shipped east by rail or truck, or they have been shipped the immense distance from the Pacific, across the Indian and Atlantic oceans to the East Coast. Using these routes adds significantly to the cost of goods. A wider canal, thus, will bring more business directly to Eastern ports.
Moreover, an expanded canal will ease the long and expensive delays that shippers must now endure in Panama as they wait for their turn to pass through. Cheaper costs of shipping mean lower-priced goods. That means greater consumer demand. And that means more activity and jobs at America's ports.
Given what is going on in American shipping, with trade exploding and East Coast ports thriving _ and now, with the Panama Canal expansion _ it is time for New England's economic-development officials to pay attention.
