In June 2013, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega hurriedly proposed and signed Law 840, which granted the Hong Kong Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Company, or the HKND Group — a Chinese corporation — a 50-year lease to the project, renewable for another 50 years.
The project's investors have yet to be identified — a troubling fact that highlights its lack of transparency. HKND's involvement reflects the ever-growing presence of East Asian investors — most notably Chinese — in Latin America, a region long dominated politically and economically by los gringos.
Construction on the proposed $50-billion canal is scheduled to begin on December 22. At 172 miles long, the Nicaragua canal will be three times the length of the Panama Canal further south. More importantly, it far exceeds the Panama Canal's width and depth, enabling it to accommodate increasingly super-sized container ships that cannot fit through the Panama Canal's locks.
The proposed canal is projected to be an economic boon, perhaps tripling the economic growth rate of Nicaragua — currently the second poorest country in the Western hemisphere, with 40 percent of its population living in poverty. But although the impoverished masses may benefit, however minimally, through trickle-down effects from the canal, it appears to be Nicaragua's economic elite — including Ortega's closest Sandinista supporters — who stand to gain the most.
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