Who wants to bet on a Chinese-invested 'Nicaragua Canal'?

For centuries since the colonisation of the New World, entrepreneurs have dreamed of building a canal spanning Nicaragua to make it easier to tap Asia’s riches.

Sixteenth century Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes yearned to cleave the isthmus, and ever since, French, American and Dutch financiers have all made abortive, Quixotic attempts to bisect the Central American country’s volcano-studded terrain.

Now it’s the turn of the Chinese. And scepticism is as strong as ever.

The Hong Kong-based company that won a concession to design, build and manage a US$40 billion canal to rival Panama’s says it has been lured by an energy renaissance in the United States and its belief that world trade could double by 2030.

The company, HKND Group, was registered last year in the Cayman Islands. This would be its first infrastructure project, and its 40-year-old boss, Wang Jing, is relatively unknown.

There is still no firm route for the proposed canal, which would cost about four years’ worth of Nicaragua’s annual gross domestic product, and would likely be three times longer than the 48-mile (77-km) Panama Canal, which took a decade to build. Engineers also note that the geography poses some major challenges - not least a 20 foot tide differential between the two coasts.

For all those reasons, investors and infrastructure experts are highly dubious that a canal will ever be built.