It was in 1956 when Malcom McLean is said to have had the idea that would revolutionise commercial shipping. The U.S. transport entrepreneur deemed incredibly inefficient the way cargo was unloaded from his trucks onto ships docked at port. The same was true about the way his trucks were loaded with cargo from the ships: piece by piece. He thought about having the entire truck loaded onto the ship, but it turned out that the wheels of the vehicle would occupy too much space in the hull. That is when he came up with the idea of loading – and unloading - the container carried by a truck.

The standard would become a Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit, or TEU: 20 feet (6.06 metres) long, 8.5 feet wide (2.59 metres) and 8 feet (2.43 metres) high. Today, it is estimated that at least 65 million containers are being moved across the globe. If they were lined up end to end, they would circle it at the equator 10 times.

The Cosco Shipping Panama (see photo) was the first ship to pass through Panama’s new canal at its June 26, 2016 inauguration following its construction by Webuild. It had 9,443 containers on board. A number that in a mere six years would rise to 15,000 containers as the length of so-called Neo-Panamax ships would stretch from an average 299 metres to 370 metres. In the six years since the canal’s opening, more than 17,000 ships have passed through its lock system at an average rate of 7-8 ships a day. The biggest ships pay a toll of more than $1 million.

The Central American country, which still operates the old canal for smaller ships, brings in $4 billion a year from the tolls it charges. It is an economic benefit that is seen exceeding $5 billion before 2025.