The announcement that the Fondo Nacional de Infraestructura (National Infrastructure Fund or FNI) will become a partner in the Chalacatepec tourist complex – dubbed by Jalisco’s former governor as Mexico’s “New Cancun” – will contribute significantly to the economic regeneration of the region, says Francisco Ayon, president of the administrative committee of the Instituto de Pensiones del Estado de Jalisco (IPE), the pension fund for state workers, another of the investors in the polemic 1.3-billion-dollar project.
Located 20 kilometers south of Tomatlan, this idyllic seven-kilometer stretch of beach will be turned into a low-density tourist development to eventually encompass 13,000 hotel rooms.
The land for the resort – former communal ejido farm property – has already been purchased for 156 million dollars by IPE, which has teamed up in a business partnership with private developers Rasaland, a group backed by Goldman Sachs and Texas Pacific Group.Ayon said FNI’s participation in the Chalacatepec project was “great news for state workers.”
Some opposition politicians and union leaders have criticized IPE for potentially placing retirement funds at risk.
Ayon said FNI’s local investment in Chalacatepec, in addition to the widening of coastal highway 200, will “create a tourist corridor” from Manzanillo to the Riveria Nayarit that could “compete at an international level.”