PANAMA CITY, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Panama on Monday published in its official gazette a Supreme Court ruling canceling key port contracts held \u200cby a subsidiary of CK Hutchison, clearing the way for \u200cMaersk’s APM Terminals to take over temporarily.<\/p>\n
The publication finalizes the legal annulment of concessions for the \u200bBalboa and Cristobal terminals near the Panama Canal, which Panama Ports Company (PPC), subsidiary of Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison, had operated for more than two decades.<\/p>\n
The Panama Maritime Authority (AMP) has taken possession of both ports by decree to ensure uninterrupted \u200coperations, said Alberto Aleman \u2060Zubieta, head of the technical team overseeing the transition, after the ruling became final upon publication.<\/p>\n
“Two separate contracts are being \u2060presented to the Board of Directors of the AMP \u2014 one for the Port of Balboa and one for the Port of Cristobal \u2014 instead of a single \u200bcontract for \u200bboth ports,” Aleman Zubieta told a \u200bpress conference.<\/p>\n
Maersk did not immediately \u200chave a comment about the matter.<\/p>\n
Early in Feburary, Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino said the government would move forward to formalize an agreement with APM Terminals Panama, a subsidiary of Danish shipping group Maersk, to manage and control the ports once the ruling became legally binding.<\/p>\n
Mulino said the arrangement would remain \u200cin place while the state develops a \u200bnew long-term concession framework to be awarded \u200bin the future.<\/p>\n
“The moment the \u200bofficial gazette publishes the court’s ruling Panama Ports loses control \u200cof the ports,” political analyst Jose \u200bStoute told Reuters.<\/p>\n
The \u200bruling issued in late January came amid growing U.S.-China rivalry over global trade routes and marks a win for Washington.<\/p>\n
U.S. President Donald Trump \u200bhas pushed to curb \u200cChinese influence over the Panama Canal, which carries about 5% of \u200bglobal maritime trade.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Elida Moreno; Writing by Natalia Siniawski, Editing \u200bby Aida Pelaez-Fernandez and Sarah Morland)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PANAMA CITY, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Panama on Monday published in its official gazette a Supreme Court ruling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[224],"tags":[15076,530,4166,245,15075,3375],"class_list":{"0":"post-28326","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-maersk","8":"tag-alberto-aleman","9":"tag-apm-terminals","10":"tag-ck-hutchison","11":"tag-maersk","12":"tag-official-gazette","13":"tag-panama"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}