Panama said on Friday it plans to hike tariffs for all ships using its famous shortcut between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans to pay for the waterway's biggest-ever overhaul.
The proposed 2007-2009 increases - for container, grain and passenger ships alike - are needed in part to pay for the canal's scheduled $5.25 billion face-lift to allow it to handle mammoth modern cargo ships and boost government revenue.
The Panama Canal Authority, or ACP, is to open talks with shippers and countries that use the canal before announcing final tariffs for the next three years.
Proposals are to hike prices for container ships by 10 percent this year - from May 1 - then another 17 percent in 2008 and a further 14 percent the following year.
Panama will hold a public audience on March 14 for shippers to express their views on the tariff proposals. The canal's main users are the United States, China, Japan and Chile.
In a 2006 referendum, Panamanians overwhelmingly backed the plan to give the canal its biggest-ever overhaul, a project the government hopes will help lift the country out of poverty. The project for the canal, which was US territory from the time it was opened in 1914 until it was returned to Panama in 1999, will double its capacity to let through more and bigger ships. The expansion should also fan economic growth by creating a jobs bonanza for Panama's 3 million people.
The canal saves ships a long haul around South America's treacherous Cape Horn. It carries around 4 percent of world maritime trade.
But its lock system is too small for many modern tankers and ships are facing longer waits to make the 50-mile (80-km) inter-oceanic trip. The expansion, to run from 2008 to 2014, will build wider locks and deeper and bigger access channels to let through ships with 12,000 containers, up from 4,000 containers at present.
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