WASHINGTON: From January to September 2016, the income from ships that crossed thed Panama Canal and the movement of cargos in ports of the country dropped, according to the report of the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC) published here. These figures are in contrast with the report of the Canal Authority (ACP) which registered the third highest annual tonnage of its history in fiscal year 2016, period that comprises from October 1st 2015 to September 30th of 2016, period in which transited the canal 13 thousand 114 ships, of them 238 PostPanamax (great size).
‘Despite the deceleration of the international maritime trade during last year, we have registered on of the highest annual tonnages since the opening of the original canal 102 years ago’, said last October the administrator of the Canal Authority, Jorge Luis Quijano. This reinforces the continuous strategic importance of the route and the increasing value that recent investments in the Canal will bring to the maritime industry’, he said.
Despite that success, the INEC counted, in the first nine months of this year, a fall of 6.6 percent in the transits compared to the same period of 2015, and proportionately also dropped the volume of the cargoes, although he recognized an important compensation last September. The weight in that recovery corresponded to the new locks open to trade last June 26 and that favoring the crossing of ships with greater capacity, it opened a segment of mariket characterized by high cargo volumes per ship and, in consequence, burdensome tariffs for crossing.
In the stage January-September, revenues from tolls in the Channel were one billion 427 million 760 thousand dollars, 3.7 percent less than a similar period the previous year, while merchandise transferred were 3.3 percent points less, according to INEC. The situation was most critical for the national ports system that saw a cut by 12 million 380 thousand metric tons handled, mainluy the containers and bulk cargo, while the general one increased by seven percent.
