Panama has just finalized the historic agreement with Japan regarding financing the third metro line of Panama City in the amount of $2.6 billion dollars. Since the Canal Expansion is about to be completed, this infrastructure project will become a major challenge in Panama for the next few years.
The new line will be constructed using monorail technology and will be the first one to be built on the American continent.
The agreement also includes deep technical cooperation and hiring the Project Manager at the cost of $35 million.
“The funding provided today by Japan shows us how much they recognize the strength and credibility of Panama”, said the president of the Republic of Panama, Juan Carlos Varela at the press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. “Our economy is based on a solid fundamentals and today's event is its demonstration”, he added.
According to the President, this project “will benefit thousands of Panamanians who travel daily towards the west of Panama City”.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister stressed that “such historic shift, a landmark project will allow Japan to bring high-quality infrastructure to Panama and Latin America”.
Conditions
At the conference Varela and Abe exchanged the letters and official documentation. From the Panamanian side there were the representatives of the Agency of International Cooperation (Spanish:JICA), the Deputy Foreign Minister, Luis Miguel Hincapie, the Minister of Economy and Finance, Dulcidio de la Guardia, and the president of Panama Metro, Roberto Roy present at the conference.
The funding provided by JICA has very mild financial conditions which are based on a 20 year period, 14 of which correspond to amortization, 6 year is a grace period and 3 years for the reimbursement. The interest rate at all times will remain within 1.05%. The first agreement of almost 5 of them to come will be in the amount of ¥ 29,5 billion yen.
Line 3
Line 3 will use the monorail technology and contain 14 station in 27 kilometers, starting in Albrook Terminal and heading towards Arraijan and La Chorrera. The final station will be called Ciudad de Future (The city of future).
The trains will contain 6 cars with the total capacity of the system about 20,000 passengers an hour in a single direction.
It is expected that the construction will begin 2017 and first passengers will ride the rail by the end of 2021.
