LatinNews Daily Report - 21 January 2014

ECONOMY | ACP rejects latest EU offer to mediate. On 20 January the Panama Canal authority (ACP) rejected the offer made the previous day by the European Commission (EC), the European Union’s executive body, to mediate in the dispute between ACP and the international consortium Grupo Unidos por el Canal (GUPC), triggered by the latter’s threat to suspend work on the US$5.3bn Canal expansion project if the ACP doesn’t meet the US$1.6bn cost overrun. The ACP told the international media that the contract for completing the third set of locks already includes mechanisms to resolve disputes, none of which involve third parties. Meanwhile yesterday Saúl Méndez, the leader of the powerful local construction workers’ union (Suntracs), complained that workers on the construction project were in a state of “uncertainty” due to the GUPC’s failure to clarify whether it intended to go ahead with the project or not. Further indicative of the slowdown in activity, on 16 January, Labour Minister Alma Cortés told reporters after meeting ACP Director Jorge Quijano that more than half of the workers involved in the expansion project had been laid-off in the last five months, with 1,600 workers sacked and more than 1,000 having stopped working voluntarily.

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