Santo Domingo.- President Danilo Medina will be among the personalities who have been invited to a VIP ceremony to inaugurate the Panama Canal expansion Sunday.
After nearly a decade of expansion work aimed at boosting transit revenues and global trade, Panama will officially open its canal this weekend to far bigger cargo ships.
The first vessel to officially test the new infrastructure will be a Chinese-owned Neopanamax-class cargo ship. The expansion project, which began in 2007, is estimated to have cost US$5.5 billion. The official inaugural event will be hosted by Panama’s President Juan Carlos Varela.