{"id":14164,"date":"2016-11-04T18:07:20","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T22:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/the-panama-canal-the-bottleneck-of-global-shipping\/"},"modified":"2016-11-04T18:37:32","modified_gmt":"2016-11-04T22:37:32","slug":"the-panama-canal-the-bottleneck-of-global-shipping","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/the-panama-canal-the-bottleneck-of-global-shipping\/","title":{"rendered":"The Panama Canal: The \u201cBottleneck\u201d of Global Shipping?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since its completion in 1914, the canal has been one of the most important international waterways, handling approximately five percent of world trade. To put things in perspective, an average of 34 ships go through the canal every day, and it takes 52 million gallons of water (roughly 82 Olympic-sized swimming pools) to move each ship through. This summer (2016), a $5.4 billion dollar expansion project was completed following nine years of dredging, land-blasting, and 16 100-ft tall sluice gates for the canal\u2019s locks. \u201cWe knew for a long time we had to think about expanding, otherwise we would lose relevancy in the world,\u201d said Ilya R. Espino de Marotta, who oversees the project for the Panama Canal Authority, an autonomous agency of the government of Panama.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n