President meets with Japan PM to move Metro line 3 ahead

 PRESIDENT Juan Carlos Varela held a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe  in Paris on Monday, November 30  to discuss the financing of line 3 of the Metro with  a 2016 start date.

The meeting was held within the framework of the United Nations conference on climate change..

After the meeting, it was agreed that negotiations on the financing of the Metro expansion will continue when Panama sends a technical delegation to Tokyo. Thedelegation will be tasked with finalizing the agreement so that the project can begin before the end of 2016.

“It’s an infrastructure project very important to my administration and will serve to showcase Japanese technology to the region,” Varela said.

Japan has the fastest rail service in the world and recently completed a new line with trains traveling at 600 km an hour.

Line 3 will run over Panama’s fourth canal bridge and will run to Panama West.