Up to 520 meters wide and 278 kilometers long

A route for the proposed US$40 billion Nicaraguan interoceanic canal has been approved by a committee consisting of government officials, businessmen and academics. The 278-kilometer route runs through Lake Nicaragua from the Brito River on the Pacific side to the Punto Gorda River on the Caribbean.

Environmental and social impact studies will be conducted that could modify the route, but planners said the final route would be approved later this year and work could begin by December 2014, according to a Reuters report.

The plan was presented by the HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co., a firm led by Hong Kong lawyer Wang Jing, that last year won the rights to develop the ambitious infrastructure project. Environmentalists have expressed concern the canal would disrupt the region’s water supply and damage its fragile ecosystem. The canal would be between 230 meters and 520 meters wide with a depth of 27.6 meters.

The new canal would be able to accommodate vessels twice the size of those able to pass through the Panama Canal expansion, which is scheduled to be completed in 2016. Last week, Nicaraguan lawmaker Edwin Castro said the Nicaragua Canal will not compete as a transit route with the Panama Canal.

“Nicaragua’s canal will have a much wider strip across the country, in other words, it will be able to admit much bigger ships than would fit in the Panama Canal, even when it’s enlarged,” the politician said to a group of students. HKND Group has said that its canal could admit Super-Post-Panamax ships of up to 23,000 TEUs.

HKND plans to complete construction in 2019 and begin operating the Nicaragua Canal in 2020. Earlier this week,

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