Mexico inaugurates an ambitious coast-to-coast train and aims to compete with the Panama Canal

The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, inaugurated this Friday the train of the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (CIIT), one of the last emblematic works of his government and with which it hopes to unite the Pacific Ocean with the Atlantic to compete commercially with the Panama Canal.

The work will connect the ports of Salina Cruz (Oaxaca, Pacific) with Coatzacoalcos (Veracruz, Atlantic), in a 303 kilometer band that will also include two deep-sea ports, freight trains, highways, three airports in Minatitlán (Veracruz) and Ixtepec and Huatulco (Oaxaca), as well as a gas pipeline and a fiber optic network.

With this new communication route, the first of the three lines of the Interoceanic Train, Mexico seeks to increase international trade by connecting Asia with the east coast of the United States and Europe through that pass, the narrowest point in the country.

A new commercial option

“Panama is already saturated and we don’t want to compete with our Panamanian brothers, we know how much it cost them to recover their sovereignty (over the Canal). It’s not about competing with a brotherly people,” López Obrador said upon departure. Panama Railways Passenger Flag, which has nine seasons.

In addition to connecting the Pacific with the Atlantic and commercially exploiting the passage, López Obrador aim to build an international trade logistics platform with 10 industrial parks -of approximately 300 hectares each-, and 12 development poles, which will encourage the arrival of companies, assemblers and jobs.

In his morning conference in Salina Cruz, the president reported that agreements already exist with Asian countries for the use of CIIT.

He added that during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum, held in mid-November in San Francisco, he spoke about the project and ensured that the Asian countries present showed interest in the project due to the saturation of the Panama Canal.

“It’s about having other options. Trade in Asia has grown a lot, the Pacific ports, for example Manzanillo (in Colima), are the ones that handle the largest number of containers thanks to the growth of Asia and there are unbeatable conditions for achieve this,” he noted…

Furthermore, he indicated that the area of ​​influence of this work covers 115 municipalities and 9,418 communities, recalling that the development poles are four in Veracruz, six in Oaxaca and two in Chiapas.

The resurrection of passenger trains

As with the Mayan Train, inaugurated a week ago in the south-east of the country, the president underlined that the Interoceanic Corridor represents the return of passenger and freight railways after their privatization in the 1990s.

In his lecture, López Obrador said that CIIT “is a very ambitious sector with other purposes.”

“And we want to maintain our sovereignty and that is why Mexican companies will be the ones who will manage the ports and will be responsible for the development hubs,” he added.

Although he specified that there will be exceptions, such as “a Danish company (Copenhagen Infrastructure Fund) which is committing an investment of around 10 billion dollars to produce green hydrogen, which is a non-polluting fuel”.

In the previous tests, the route of the train, which will be in charge of the Navy Secretariat, lasted 6.20 hours.

At the inauguration, López Obrador was accompanied by the heads of the Secretariat of the Economy, Raquel Buenrostro; Navy, Rafael Ojeda, and National Defense, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, as well as the governors of Oaxaca and Veracruz, Salomón Jara and Cuitláhuac García.

Also present was the tycoon Carlos Slim, representing the Builder of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec

First of three lines

Although only the Z line began this Friday, from Salina Cruz to Coatzacoalcos, the director of the project, Admiral Raymundo Morales, explained in the presidential conference that the FA line from Coatzacoalcos to Palenque (Chiapas) It is 41% complete and will begin operations in June 2024.

While the K line, from Ciudad Ixtepec (Oaxaca) to Ciudad Hidalgo (Chiapas), on the border with Guatemala, will enter into operation in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Morales specified that the project involves the rehabilitation of a total of 1,197 kilometers of railway tracks on the three lines.

According to data and estimates, through the freight train Mexico will have the capacity to transport 1.4 million containers per year from port to port, which will help the development of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, an underdeveloped and historically forgotten region, as well as to promote the country’s economy.

Source: EFE