Star-Telegram.com reports:

The country has made $4.75 billion from the Panama Canal since taking it over a decade ago, more than twice what it received in the 85 years the U.S. ran the waterway, the operating authority said Wednesday. Today marks the 10th anniversary of the handover of the canal by the U.S., which opened the waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific in 1914.

Considered to be one of the most important…and game changing…public works projects of the century, completion of a third set of Panama Canal ship locks in 2014 will provide many of the world’s largest vessels a crucial “intercontinental shortcut” to lucrative markets. To examine the potential impacts of this project and other major trade pattern developments-and the ripple effects on everything from dredging, port competition, vessel transloading and short-sea shipping-the American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA), U.S. Maritime Administration and Tampa Port Authority are partnering for the third consecutive year to offer their Shifting International Trade Routes conference in Tampa, Fla., Jan. 26-27, 2010.

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credit to www.panama-guide.com
PANAMA (AP). In the past five years, poverty in Panama declined four percentage points, according to a study released Tuesday. The living standards survey conducted by the Comptroller General and assisted by the World Bank found that poverty level was 32.7% in 2008, while in 2003 poverty was estimated at 36.8%. Extreme poverty levels fell from 16.4% to 14.2%. The figures show that poverty “has been declining gradually in the last period from 2003 to 2008 has fallen 4% which is good,” said Panama’s comptroller Carlos Vallarino during the presentation of the survey results. More