Panama Voters Approve Canal Expansion

Voters in Panama this month approved a $5.25 billion Panama Canal expansion project. The massive undertaking will add a third set of locks on the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the waterway and is expected to double the Canal's capacity. It will also make the Canal accessible to the larger cruise liners that are currently too wide to pass through it.

Construction on the project will commence in 2007 and is expected to be completed by 2015. Panama's President Martin Torrijos is quoted by Associated Press as saying that the Canal project will create 40,000 new jobs.

The Panama Canal was built by the United States in the early 1900s and opened in 1914. Control of the Canal was ceded to the country of Panama on December 31, 1999. Over 14,000 vessels passed through the 48-mile Canal in 2005.