Construction Of Nicaragua's Canal To Be Delayed At Least A Year Because Plans Are Incomplete

In this Dec. 4, 2013 photo, Oscar Torres, a 62-year-old retired construction worker takes photos of a banner showing a map of Nicaragua with possible routes of the Inter-Oceanic canal in Managua, Nicaragua. Six months after the Sandinista government granted a Chinese businessman a 100-year concession to build a vast canal across the country, Nicaraguans are confident the $40 billion canal will become reality, lifting their country from poverty to prosperity. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

Nicaragua's government says the construction of the nation's inter-ocean canal will start a year later than planned because the waterway's path has yet to be defined.

The president of the canal authority, Manuel Coronel Kautz, says the project will not begin until 2015 because the canal's route approval comes in the third quarter of this year. Authorities had said construction could begin in 2014.

Kautz told La Prensa newspaper Saturday authorities wanted to wait for feasibility studies to be well advanced.

The announcement comes in the midst of a $1.6 billion dispute between Panama's government and a consortium responsible for expanding its canal.

Nicaraguan legislators in June approved granting Beijing-based telecommunications CEO Wang Jing a concession to build and operate a canal more than three times the length of Panama's.