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Panama Transportation and Communication
Transportation was the single most important contributor to
Panama's service-oriented economy. The Panama Canal has given great
impetus to other transportation services, and many of those, such
as the oil pipeline and the CFZ, have achieved a dynamism of their
own. In the area of communications, Panama was served by 213,400
telephones in 1984, in addition to 142 radio stations, 6 television
channels, and 6 daily newspapers.
The transportation sector has been further broadened by a
network of roads, ocean ports, and airports
(see
fig. 8). The major
roads were the Pan-American Highway and the Trans-isthmian Highway
(also known as the Boyd-Roosevelt Highway) between Panama City and
Colón. In 1984 Panama had 9,535 kilometers of roads, of which 32
percent were asphalted. Panama had only three railroads: two in the
west originating in David and Almirante and extending to the Costa
Rican border, and one linking Panama City and Colón. The General
Omar Torrijos Herrera International Airport (commonly known as
Tocumen International Airport), and located near Panama City,
served international airlines.
Panama had fourteen ports, the most important of which were
Balboa on the Pacific side and Cristóbal on the Atlantic, located
at the entrances to the canal. Together, the two ports served 70
percent of the international ships arriving in Panama in 1983. The
two ports, however, have declined in regional importance since the
1970s, in part because of technological change and competition. In
their prime, Balboa and Cristóbal were transshipment centers of
break-bulk traffic. In the 1970s, containerization became
widespread; large ships could break the bulk cargo into containers
at any port offering container facilities, at which point the cargo
could be stored or transshipped through the canal on a smaller
vessel. Miami and Kingston developed sophisticated container
facilities and contributed to the precipitous decline (from 145,000
tons in 1969 to 38,707 tons in 1980) in transshipment traffic
through Balboa and Cristóbal. In order to compete more effectively,
US$18 million was spent on Cristóbal in the early 1980s, making it
the first container port in Panama. Later plans call for upgrading
eight other ports as well.
Data as of December 1987
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