Panama canal land attracts Chinese state firms

Chinese state firms have expressed an interest to develop land around the Panama Canal, the chief executive of the vital trade thoroughfare said, underlining China’s outward push into infrastructure as part of the One Belt, One Road program. The Panama Canal Authority will officially open a tender to develop about 1,200 hectares of land, roughly the size of 1,200 football fields, around the waterway by the end of this year into a logistics park, after completing a five-year-long decontamination of the area, Chief Executive Jorge Quijano said. We have been talking to people here in China,” Quijano told Reuters on Monday. China Communications Construction Corp, its subsidiary China Harbour Engineering Company and China Railway Group have shown interest in the project, he added. China’s state firms have in recent years already chalked up investments in key logistics nodes, including Piraeus in Greece and Bandar Malaysia.