Nicaragua announces start of China-backed canal to rival Panama

Nicaragua has announced the start of work on a $50 billion shipping canal, an infrastructure project backed by China that aims to rival Panama's waterway and revitalise the economy of the second-poorest country in the Americas.

The groundbreaking was largely symbolic, as work began on a road designed to accommodate machinery needed to build a port for the canal on the Central American country's Pacific coast.

Nicaragua's government says the proposed 172-mile canal, due to be operational by around 2020, would raise annual economic growth to more than 10 per cent.

The canal could also give China a major foothold in Central America, a region long dominated by the United States, which completed the Panama Canal a century ago.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/nicaragua/11309953/Nicaragua-announces-start-of-China-backed-canal-to-rival-Panama.html