PANAMA’S president, Juan Carlos Varela, will travel to Japan in April to sign a contract for the financing and project management of the construction of line 3 of the Metro.

The signing will take place April 18 in Tokyo. The project will cost an estimated $2 billion. It will consist of a 26.7-kilometer monorail with 14 stations. Construction should start in 2017.

The construction will take place at the same time as  the building of the fourth bridge over the Panama Canal. That bridge will have two tracks for the Metro, which will run from Albrook to La Chorrera.

The monorail will carry up to 20,000 people an hour at peak times reports La Prensa.