‘Exceptional year’ was the laconic phrase that Panama Canal Administrator Ricaurte Vasquez said when he referred to what he described of ‘the news’, a goal they achieved in one of the ‘most difficult years in the recent global history.’
The success sped up the projections for the 2021-2022 fiscal year, in which the company intends to reach 536.6 million tons of cargo and make a net contribution to the State of 2,497.2 billion dollars.
Both figures would represent new records within the historic indicators.
What Vasquez called ‘the 500 million ton barrier’ was preceded by 475 million tons reached in 2020 when, taking into account the forecasts of the World Trade Organization (WTO) for 2021, Vasquez himself said in October that they expected a decrease in cargoes for the current year.
The WTO then predicted a 9.2 percent drop in the world trade in 2020 and a 7.2 percent recovery in 2021, but with levels below the period before the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced the Panama Canal Administration to plan a 10 percent reduction in transits and a nine percent reduction in tonnage.
Since the Canal turned over to Panama in 1999 to date, contributions to the National Treasury were 18.6 billion dollars, in net values.
pgh/iff/jha/orm
