"Everybody Will Have a Better Life" with $50 Billion Panama Canal Alternative, says HKND Group

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Thursday August 27, 2015

HKND Group (HKND) of Hong Kong claims it has the public backing of Nicaraguans for its plan to build a $50 billion, 275-kilometre waterway for vessels that can't navigate the Panama Canal, Bloomberg this week reported.

HKND said in a statement that 78 percent of Nicaraguans responding to a survey support the plan, despite analysts such as Sverre Svenning, a shipping expert at Fearnley Consultants AS, questioning if sufficient demand for the waterway exists given the impending completion of Panama's $5.25 billion expansion project.

HKND, led by billionaire Wang Jing, also stated that it will change the waterway's originally planned route at a cost of $700 million in order to provide a distance of at least 500 metres between it and the town of El Tule on the southeastern side of Lake Nicaragua.

"Both in the current time and future, we can confirm that the township of El Tule will not be affected by the canal and the town will not disappear," the company said.

An aerial geological survey and government approval of environmental impact studies are pending, but HKND says that after its canal is built, "everybody will have a better life."

The Nicaraguan National Assembly in June of this year officially ratified a deal with HKND to develop the canal across the Central American nation.

Ship & Bunker News Team
To contact the editor responsible for this story email us at editor@shipandbunker.com