Nicaragua announces start of China-backed canal to rival Panama

Managua

NICARAGUA on Monday announced the start of work on a US$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.