For hundreds of years, men have dreamed of building a canal across Nicaragua, conquering this volatile land of volcanoes and rainforests and breaking Panama’s monopoly on global shipping. On Tuesday that dream came a step closer to reality as a Chinese entrepreneur unveiled his route for a 274-kilometre, pounds 26-billion waterway from the Pacific to the Caribbean. If Wang Jing pulls off the feat, it will rank as one of the greatest engineering marvels in history.

Sitting in the offices of his telecommunications company in an industrial park north of Beijing, Mr. Wang, 40, is clearly very serious and determined. “I am 100% certain the construction will begin in December 2014 and we will finish in five years in 2019,” he said. He added that while a feasibility report is unfinished, “the framework” of the project has been decided.

Beginning at the Pacific port of Brito, ships will cross Lake Nicaragua, pass the small airport at Morrito before snaking through the jungle towards the Caribbean lowlands and Bluefields, the port on the eastern Mosquito Coast. The news is likely to dismay environmentalists, who have complained that Lake Nicaragua, already heavily polluted with sewage, could be further harmed by some of the world’s largest tankers.

Mr. Wang said he would put environmental protection at the heart of the project. “I take all responsibility for any environmental damage. I have told my employees that if we make a mistake on this front, we will be dishonored in the history textbooks of Nicaragua,” he said.

The project has raised many eyebrows. Mr. Wang has no history of huge infrastructure projects and the engineering challenge is immense, with tides on the two coasts differing in height by as much as 20 feet. And Nicaragua is hardly an investment-grade country, making it difficult to raise the vast sums required. Mr. Wang said he would name his investors in the next two months, but added that all the funds necessary had already been secured from China, Europe and the United States. “Our investors are big banks and other large institutions,” he said. “They are first-class investors.”

The Panamanian government has suggested that the U.S., which built the Panama Canal and controlled it until 1999, would hardly be “amenable” to the idea of a Chinese rival. A canal across Nicaragua was first suggested in 1567, when Felipe II of Spain ordered a survey. The project has been resuscitated now many of today’s tankers are too large for the Panama Canal.

Source: The National Post