PANAMA CITY/MADRID (Reuters) - The president of Panama said on Thursday he would go to Spain and Italy to put pressure on companies to honour contracts to expand his country's canal after the building consortium handling the project threatened to suspend work because of a row over costs.
The members of the consortium -- Spain's Sacyr, Italy's Salini Impregilo, Belgium's Jan De Nul and Panama's Constructora Urbana -- said jointly on Wednesday that $1.6 billion (973.2 million pounds) in cost overruns on the $3.2 billion extension should be met by Panama.