Spain’s Crown Prince Felipe and his wife wrapped up their visit to Panama with tours of the Panama City metro project and a canal-expansion construction site.
Those two infrastructure projects, the most important being undertaken by President Ricardo Martinelli’s administration, are being built with Spanish firms’ participation and demonstrate their ability to take on big challenges.
Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia first visited the site where one of the metro stations is being built and later toured one of two new lock complexes being constructed to expand the Panama Canal’s capacity.
A consortium that includes Spain’s FCC won a contract to build the Panama City metro’s Line 1, which will stretch for 14 kilometers (8.7 miles) and have 14 stations. Construction work is scheduled to conclude in 2014.
The 57 Alstom trains that will circulate on Line 1 are being built in Barcelona.
The royals also paid a separate visit to the new lock complex being built on the Pacific side of the canal.
With the noise of machinery, cranes, trucks and diggers in the background, the couple observed the large new lane that ships will eventually traverse and an enormous concrete monolith, one of dozens that will line the Pacific-side lock walls.
Spain is represented in this project by construction company Sacyr Vallehermoso, which has a 48 percent stake in the consortium building the third set of locks.
The prince and princess posed for a photo outside an observation tower after meeting with Sacyr CEO Manuel Manrique, who thanked the Spanish royal family for the support they are providing for “Brand Spain.”
After concluding their stay in Panama, Felipe and Letizia traveled Thursday to Ecuador.
