Cuban Port Eyes Pact with Panama Canal expansion

 

According to the Mariel terminal sources, "The port has possibility to connect with everyone from the Panama Canal expansion" and its geographical position "facilitates the export to the Caribbean and to the East Coast American production that takes place in special development zone.

 

The commercial director of the container terminal in Mariel, Marcelo Lluveras, stressed the importance of expanding the Panama waterway and the opportunity for all ports that have the conditions created.

 

Projections of modern terminal Cuban containers, which opened operations in January 2014, were analyzed in a panel on the future of the port sector, once the culmination of the redevelopment of the Panama Canal through a new set of locks.

 

The expansion project of the Panama Canal, which began in 2007, should be completed in October 2014, but delays for which blame, to each other, the contractor consortium and the administration of the waterway, they postpone the opening up April 2016.

 

The Port of Mariel – The infamous point of exodus for thousands of Cuban refugees seeking freedom in the U.S. – may soon become a magnet for Caribbean Basin trade.

 

A great deal has changed since that shameful episode in the 1980s, when the Cuban government dumped its criminals and dissidents on American shores. And maritime analysts suggest that the recent diplomatic thaw in our relationship may augur great things for Cuba’s deep-water port.

 

The creation of a Special Economic Zone (EEZ) in the port of Mariel, 45 miles west of Havana, is a joint strategy between Brazil and the Cuban government. The modernization of the port, first container terminal in the Caribbean, are made possible thanks to and National Development Bank (BNDES) of Brazil.