Infra projects: The basis of AMLO’s close ties with Carlos Slim

The Mexican infrastructure sector has given rise to an unlikely relationship between leftist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) and business mogul Carlos Slim. 

Since taking office in December 2018, AMLO has placed a strong focus on major infrastructure projects and this has allowed Slim’s companies to win several large contracts.

The president and the country’s richest man held a construction-progress meeting on Saturday in Palenque (Chiapas state) regarding the second stretch of the Maya train, AMLO said in a tweet over the weekend in which he included a photo of his meeting with Slim (pictured left).

The 18.6bn-peso (US$771mn) contract to build the 235km passenger and freight rail line, running from Escárcega to Calkiní in Campeche state, was awarded to Carso Infraestructura y Construcción (Cicsa), the infrastructure branch of conglomerate Grupo Carso, and Spain’s FCC Construcción. Both Carso and FCC are controlled by Slim.

The president did not provide specific details on the progress of the project, while saying that other topics had also been discussed with the billionaire during their meeting. 

AMLO then said at his Monday press conference that the stretch assigned to Slim’s companies is complex and they had agreed to double efforts to speed up its construction. The president had said in January that his administration would double or even triple work shifts at the first four stretches of the 1,500km rail line this year. 

Other projects

AMLO and Slim have met in public and private several times, with both men happy to tell media of their good personal relationship and willingness to work together for the benefit of Mexico. 

In January last year, Slim said he would invest 100bn pesos in Mexican infrastructure projects during AMLO’s term, which ends in 2024. 

Besides the Maya train, Slim’s companies have confirmed 9.7bn pesos worth of investments to expand and upgrade three highways that are under their concessions. They were all added to the country’s 2020-24 national infrastructure program (PNI), which was last updated in December. 

Those projects are the 7.6bn-peso Mitla-Tehuantepec toll route in Oaxaca state, a package of three Pacific southern highway expansion works worth 2bn pesos in the states of Jalisco and Nayarit, and another 93mn-peso expansion of the Tepic Villa Unión highway in Nayarit.

At a conference call with analysts in mid-February, Cicsa CFO Arturo Spínola García said projects such as the Mitla-Tehuantepec toll route and the Maya train stretch helped compensate for the poor performance that the retail units of Grupo Carso had seen in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Slim is also the owner of America Móvil, the largest telecom company in Mexico.