Panama Canal Railway to Use Japanese Monorail System

Tokyo, Jan. 18 (Jiji Press)--The governments of Japan and Panama have agreed on the use of a Japanese monorail system for a planned railway across the Panama Canal, it was learned on Monday. The two governments have signed a memorandum of understanding on the utilization of Japan's "high-quality" monorail technologies, informed sources said. Panama will be the first country in the Central America-Caribbean region to build a monorail system. Japan is also considering providing yen loans for the monorail project, for which total costs are estimated at about 230 billion yen, the sources said. A consortium of Japanese firms including electric machine maker Hitachi Ltd. <6501> and trading house Mitsubishi Corp. <8058> is highly expected to win an order for a 27-kilometer section of the planned monorail, which is planned to be completed in 2022, they said. Exports of Japanese railway and other infrastructure systems are a pillar of the economic growth strategy of the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Japanese monorail systems have been exported to Dubai and China, while India has decided to adopt Japan's Shinkansen high-speed rail format. END