Afro-Panamanian
In 1904 when the construction of the Panama Canal was taken over by the United States for the failure of the French company, will again resort to the West Indian worker. Although between 1904 and 1914 the vast majority of Afro-West Indians who arrived in Panama did a one-year contract with the idea of returning to their home islands once the offshore project, after construction of the canal many Afro-Antillean stayed in Panama. Afro-West Indians who remained in Panama many got jobs in the Canal Zone and became the largest immigrant group in Panama. On the subject of Afro-Antillean Panama, Leslie B. Rout said that when the canal was opened in 1914, some 20,000 African-West Indians remained in Panama.
Panama Canal expansion project
The construction of the third set of locks project was originally slated to take seven or eight years, with the new locks beginning operations between fiscal years 2014 and 2015, roughly 100 years after the canal first opened. In July 2012, however, it was announced that the expansion project had fallen six months behind schedule, pushing the opening date back from October 2014 to April 2015. By September 2014, the new gates were projected to be open for transit at the "beginning of 2016."