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Weekly Report - 31 March 2016 (WR-16-12)

PANAMA: Varela finally names the date

President Juan Carlos Varela and the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) administrator Jorge Luis Quijano have confirmed that the US$5.3bn Panama Canal expansion project will be officially inaugurated on 26 June. The announcement, which was made on 23 March, puts paid to major speculation following delays which have pushed the date back from October 2014. While Panama has one of the highest economic growth rates in the region, the inauguration of the Canal expansion is a welcome boost for Varela. It comes as his Partido Panameñista (PPA)-led El Pueblo Primero (EPP) coalition government is seeking to address a major drag on growth – the crisis in the country’s Colón Free Trade Zone (FTZ) – one of the world’s biggest duty free trade areas – which continues to be affected by the fall in demand from two of its leading trading partners, Venezuela and Colombia.

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