Mexico to start 1,200 infrastructure projects by March

Mexico to start 1,200 infrastructure projects by March Mexico's transport and communications ministry, or SCT, is committing to the start of 1,200 national infrastructure projects by the end of March.
   SCT officials expect the projects, which will receive funding from an infrastructure budget approved by the Mexican government's lower house, to generate jobs on a national level.
   The agency is also expected in the next several weeks to release the second round of funding, 40 billion pesos ($3.7 billion) for the Mexican government's highway concession rescue commission. Nearly 35 infrastructure projects have already been proposed to the government. Selections are expected to be announced when the funding is formally released.
   The federal government is also set to deliver 22 billion pesos ($2 billion) for projects from President Felipe Calder'n's five-year $250 billion national infrastructure program that was announced earlier this year.
   Priorities under the Calderon's program include the Arco Norte highway project and the Punta Colonet port development.
   The Arco Norte project will connect four major national highways in central Mexico and complete the northern section of the beltway around Mexico City. The project is set to receive up to 3.5 billion pesos ($323 million) from the national infrastructure program.
   The port of Punta Colonet is also a major priority for Calder'n's program. Differing versions of the Punta Colonet port plan have ranged in cost from as much a $1 billion to $9 billion for a nearly all-intermodal operation, with containers being transported via rail to the American mainline rails near the intersection of the California, Arizona and Mexican borders.
   The Mexican government's current vision is for Punta Colonet, when fully constructed in about 2020, to be about the size of the New York-New Jersey port complex, the third-busiest U.S. container port at more than 5 million TEUs a year.
   Bids for the Punta Colonet project will be sought for a single firm to develop the port/rail projects and to operate the facilities. The Calder'n administration is predicting that the bids will be in the range of $5 billion to $6 billion. Mexican government officials have said they hope to start construction on the Punta Colonet port, located about 150 miles south of the U.S./Mexico border near San Diego, Calif., by the end of 2008.