The Panama Canal Authority, an autonomous agency that runs the major freight channel through Central America, on Tuesday said the U.S.-Iran war in the Middle East should cause more shipments to travel through the canal.

"The expectation is that this will continue until the situation in the Middle East is resolved," the agency's finance chief Victor Vial said at a meeting, noting that since October the canal had registered some 300 vessels crossings compared with the same period last fiscal year.