Tag: port expansion

Work is completely paralyzed, on the Pacific and the Atlantic side Construction of the third set of locks at the Panama Canal ground to a halt when thousands of workers stopped work to demand payment of back wages and better working conditions, according to a published report."Work is completely paralyzed, on the Pacific and the Atlantic side," Saul Mendez, head of the National Union of Workers in Construction and Allied Industries, the largest in the country, told Agence France Press.The largest element of the expansion project is the $3.2 billion construction of the locks by the United Group, a consortium of Spain's Sacyr, Italy's Impregilo, Belgium's Jan de Nul and Panama's Constructora Urbana. The union is demanding that the consortium pay back wages as well as raise the minimum wage of thousands of workers on the site, according to Mendez, who also accused foreign foremen of abusing Panamanian workers, according to AFP.Workers staged protests throughout the day that included burning tires. The United Group denied the allegations, saying in a statement that it "fully complies with the pay and working conditions" agreed upon with the workers and that it is "very respectful of Panamanian regulations."It added, however, that there had ...

Expansion will increase the port's capacity to handle more cargo Djibouti Ports and Free Zones Authority's chairman, Aboubaker Omar Hadi, said that the government would expand the country's port and would spend USD330 million on the whole procedure, reported Reuters.Hadi added that the expansion, which would increase the port's capacity to handle more cargo, would be expected to finish by the year 2014; moreover, it would include establishing a quay and container handling equipment.He also said that since the country hosted France's largest military base in Africa in addition to a key US base, the port was used to fight piracy by foreign navies patrolling busy shipping lanes off the coast of Somalia.It is worth noting that once completed, the port will have the capacity to handle 3 million containers annually from an estimated 800,000 at the end of fiscal 2011.