Mulino presents Panama Canal's investment plan to Citi in New York

Panama's President José Raúl Mulino met in New York with Citi Group's CEO, Jane Fraser, in a gathering that included a discussion with 26 investors and the financial institution's leadership team. During the meeting, the president presented the country's economic recovery, the consolidation of its logistics platform, and the main infrastructure projects underway.

Mulino reported that Panama posted 5.5% growth in the first half of 2026 and said he expects to surpass the 3.8% projection estimated by the IMF for the year. The president detailed that the Panama Canal has an $8.5 billion investment plan that includes the Río Indio reservoir, two new ports, a gas pipeline, and an intermodal logistics corridor, in addition to projects such as the Panama-David railway, the multipurpose dock at Puerto Armuelles, and the power interconnection with Colombia and Ecuador.

The Panama Canal Authority's administrator, Ilya Espino de Marotta, presented the ACP's ongoing projects to investors. Jane Fraser expressed Citi's interest in supporting the initiatives of the Panamanian government and the ACP, and recommended that the country maintain its investment grade, warning that global financing programs will become increasingly selective.

During the same agenda in New York, Mulino met with representatives from Blackstone, the world's largest asset management firm, and SSA Marine, a subsidiary of the Carrix group and the largest marine terminal operator in the United States and the Americas, which already operates at the Port of Manzanillo, in Colón. Both companies, which work in partnership, expressed interest in opportunities linked to the new ports and the Panama Canal projects. The meeting was attended by Uffe Ostergaard, CEO of SSA Marine; Sebastian Sherman, Managing Director of Blackstone Infrastructure Group; and Kristan Nevins, Managing Director of Government Relations at Blackstone, along with Panamanian ministers Felipe Chapman and José Ramón Icaza.

SSA Marine currently operates the Manzanillo International Terminal (MIT), which handled around 2.16 million TEU between January and August 2026, within a combined throughput of 6.74 million TEU at Panamanian ports in the same period, representing a 2.8% year-on-year increase. The interest shown by Blackstone and SSA Marine comes as Panama moves forward with new concession processes for the ports of Balboa and Cristóbal, in addition to projects to develop terminals in Corozal, Telfers, and Margarita Island, with the Presidency yet to specify in which of these initiatives the two companies would participate.