The government of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto will spend nearly 600 billion dollars over the next four years to upgrade infrastructure around the country and reinforce his commitment to making Mexico more modern and competitive.
“Infrastructure development is one of the main priorities of our public spending (policy),” he said Monday. “The infrastructure we have is insufficient for the size and importance of the Mexican economy.
“We want to write a new chapter in the history of transport in our country, with more passenger trains connecting our cities, with more world-class ships visiting our ports and more flights taking off from our renovated airports.”
Peña Nieto said he wants to see a nation with “generalized high-speed access to the Internet and modern telephone, television and radio services, supported by modern satellites.”The Programa Nacional de Infraestructura 2014-2018 covers six areas: communications and transport, energy, hydraulics, urban development and housing, and tourism.
In total, the program incorporates 743 individual projects, with special emphasis on the less developed south/south-eastern region of the country.
Mexico lies in 64th place out of 148 nations in infrastructure quality, according to the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report.
Large-scale transportation projects the federal government is committed to funding include the construction of a third subway line in Guadalajara, the Mexico-Toluca high-speed passenger train and the Monterrey subway system.
More than half the money will be spent in the energy sector, allowing Mexico to “count on sufficient energy, of quality, and at a competitive cost.”
The projects include upgrades at the Ku-Maloob-Zaap and Cantarell oil fields off the coast of Campeche, increasing capacity at the huge Cuenca de Burgos gas field in Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas that produces three-quarters of Mexico’s natural gas needs, and accelerating the modernization of oil refineries in Madero, Minatitlan, Salamanca, Salina Cruz and Tula.
Energy Secretary Pedro Joaquín Coldwell said the improved infrastructure will allow oil production to increase to three billion barrels a day by 2018.
New projects include construction of a combined cycle power plant in Nuevo Leon, hydroelectric plants in Chiapas and Nayarit, six wind farms in Oaxaca and 16 solar fields in the north of Mexico.
Investment in the nation’s natural gas pipeline system will be 17 billion dollars – ten times the amount spent between 1995 and 2012.
Less money – 31.5 billion dollars – is earmarked for hydraulic projects that include completion of the controversial Zapotillo Dam in northern Jalisco that will pump most of its water to the city of Leon, Guanajuato.
The plan backs the construction of 30 regional hospitals and prioritizes the development of specialist medical facilities. There will also be an emphasis on the promotion of sustainable, “dignified” public housing development.
Wide-ranging tourism infrastructure improvements include the “rescue of beaches and historic town centers and the consolidation of the nation’s Pueblos Magicos.”