Expanded Panama Canal opens officially June 26, nearly tripling capacity

THE Panama Canal Expansion will officially be inaugurated on Sunday June, the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) has announced.

Final testing ahead of the opening of the expanded Panama Canal is expected to be completed in the coming weeks, with the official.

The expanded canal will accommodate 14,000-TEU ships from the 5,000-TEU limit in force today.

Boston Consulting Group and CH Robinson researchers said up to 10 per cent of Asia-US container traffic could be re-routed to US east coast ports by 2020, following the opening.

ACP announced the launch date last week during the inauguration ceremony of the canal's state-of-the-art Scale Model Manoeuvring Training Facility, which will provide additional hands-on experience to pilots and tugboat captains to operate in the Expanded Panama Canal.