$52,488 million to be invested in 2035 Regional Mobility, Logistics Master Plan

Statement from the government of El Salvador

This is a machine translation of the original statement, issue in Spanish

May 16, 2023

The road infrastructure projects, the different types of transportation and border procedures, and urban logistics, included in the Regional Mobility and Logistics Master Plan require $52,488 million over a 12-year period and details the investment for each of the countries, reported today the Minister of Public Works of El Salvador, Romeo Rodríguez Herrera .

On May 15, 2023, the meeting of the Sectoral Council of Transport Ministers of Central America (COMITRAN) was held in El Salvador, where the Plan was announced. Minister Rodríguez currently serves as president of COMITRAN.

“The Master Plan talks about axes where different investments must be developed, such as road infrastructure and land transportation and details them for each of the countries, as an example, Costa Rica with $3,000 million of investment and breaks down each one of the projects in terms of infrastructure that must be invested,” said the official.

In the case of El Salvador, $5,800 million must be invested only in road infrastructure, Guatemala $2,982, Honduras $1,093, Nicaragua $3,378, and Panama $3,325 million, for a total of $19,736. It proposes 11 strategic corridors and 398 projects.

The investment includes, in addition to road infrastructure and land transport, maritime-port, aeronautical-airports, rail transport, coordinated border management and urban logistics.

The Master Plan incorporates national plans that have to do with airport development, such as the construction of the airport in the eastern part of the country, which is already underway.

“In the end, the entire list of projects has an investment of $52,488 million, it is a gigantic investment but this Plan is projected until the year 2035 for its execution and not everything will be a responsibility of the State, different mechanisms are proposed in which the different countries of Central America can have resources through private investment, concessions for development," he added.

According to the official, there is already a roadmap that is the Plan, the next step will be the implementation and execution of each of the actions that it entails.

The Plan is a sum of projects, it establishes 11 strategic corridors to structurally transform mobility and logistics in Central America. In the case of El Salvador, the Minister said that different specialists came to collect data, who were given full support from the different institutions to develop surveys and others, which have served as inputs for the preparation of the Plan.

“It has been a coordinated effort with different institutions for the development of all these actions that have culminated in this Plan, which is a milestone for all of Central America. There was no plan that would unify in this way the different projects that would generate an important change with a strategic vision. in the Central American economies”, he affirmed.