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BOGOTA, Colombia — A Chinese freighter laden with nearly 9,500 metal cargo containers transited the expanded Panama Canal on June 26, inaugurating the interoceanic waterway and opening a new era in global trade.

The North Carolina State Port Authority is nearing completion of infrastructure improvements designed to prepare the Port of Wilmington for larger ships traveling through the new locks at the Panama Canal.

Nine years of construction work, at a cost of more than $5 billion, have equipped the Panama Canal with a third set of locks and deeper navigation channels, crucial improvements that will double the isthmus’s capacity for carrying cargo between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Nearly a decade in the making, the expansion of the Panama Canal is expected to be ready for commercial traffic in late spring.

The Panama Canal Authority has completed 96% of the work on its expansion project, which will more than double the critical waterway’s capacity when it is finished and open to vessels later this year.

The April opening of Panama’s $5.3 billion expanded canal, originally set for 2014, could be delayed further depending on repairs to leaks discovered in the new locks during testing as the waterway ends a year of record shipments, administrator Jorge Quijano said.

The Panama Canal expansion project was intricate and inspiring for leading trucking executives, who said they are now more convinced than ever of the urgent need for U.S. highway funding in order to handle the larger freight volumes bound to emerge at ports in the coming years.

The Maritime Administration has released a Panama Canal expansion report that tentatively concluded that increased competition would lower freight costs through East Coast and West Coast ports once larger ships can use the waterway.