Panama Canal forecast: smaller ships. (smaller shipments of bulk cargoes predicted by economist Richard Wainio)

Economist predicts smaller shipments of bulk cargoes. Container traffic will be largely north-south.

The Panama Canal isn't threatened by its physical ability to handle a future generation of ships, according to the canal's chief economist.

"The trends in bulk shipping in the very long term will be toward lighter and smaller loads," said Richard Wainio, director of the Panama Canal Commission's office of executive planning.

Wainio told a recent Containerization and Intermodal Institute conference in Miami that more than 90 percent of the world's ships can still transit the canal.

He said that percentage has not changed significantly in two decades, …