In 2025, the ports moved 3.77 million containers, 38% of the total from the five ports operating around the Canal. The Panama Canal, an autonomous state entity, is advancing in its port business and last Friday launched the bidding process for the new Telfers and Corozal ports, which will require an investment of $2.6 billion, plus a pipeline estimated at least $4 billion. The Prequalification Documents, published on the Canal's website, detail the requirements to participate in these bidding processes, the Canal administration reported in an official statement. "Once the interest in participating is formalized, conversations will be held with the prequalified companies to define the final pliego, which could be published in the middle of this year." The cancellation of the concession to the Chinese conglomerate CK Hutchison for the operation of two ports around the Panama Canal does not affect the bidding process for the construction of two new terminals, said the Canal's administrator, Ricaurte Vásquez, this Monday. The Supreme Court of Justice of Panama declared last Thursday "unconstitutional" the concession contract between the Panamanian State and the company Panama Ports Company (PPC), a subsidiary of the Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison, which has operated the ports of Balboa (Pacific) and Cristóbal (Atlantic), located in the surroundings of the Canal, since 1997. "The decisions taken by the central government and the Supreme Court of Justice, we have received them as they arose. This has not interrupted the process we are carrying out to launch a bidding process for the concession of two port terminals, one in Telfers (Caribbean) and the other in Corozal (Pacific)," Vásquez explained to journalists. The concession for the Balboa and Cristóbal ports, two of the five existing around the Canal, is managed by the central government through the Panama Maritime Authority (AMP), which announced that APM Terminal Panama, a subsidiary of the AP Moller-Maersk group, will temporarily take over the operation of both terminals. The Maersk subsidiary will be in charge of the ports until a new "open and transparent" bidding process is completed, confirmed President José Raúl Mulino, who guaranteed the operational continuity of both facilities. "The process could take between five and six months, with a final tender scheduled for early 2027," Vásquez detailed. Cancelled Concession The 1997 contract, which granted a 25-year concession for the Balboa and Cristóbal ports to Panama Ports Company, along with its amendments and the 2021 automatic extension, was declared unconstitutional by Panama's highest court. The ruling responds to two lawsuits filed in July 2025 by the Comptroller General, Anel Flores, who argued the existence of terms harmful to the State. "The contractual imbalance is palpable, visible in the privileges granted to the company and in the absence of a just consideration for the State," states the sentence cited by the local press. The Balboa and Cristóbal ports are part of the purchase and sale agreement for more than 40 terminals, valued at nearly $23 billion, reached in 2025 between CK Hutchison and a consortium led by BlackRock, an operation that was halted by China amid geopolitical tensions with the United States.
