Sheinbaum’s infrastructure plan to be ready by October

The preparation of Mexican president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum's national infrastructure plan has begun and it is expected to be ready before she takes office on October 1. 

The new infrastructure, communications and transport minister, Jesús Esteva, said his team is working with authorities in each state to identify the projects that should be prioritized. 

“That is what those meetings are about: listening to governors, who have been asked to prioritize their proposals. Our technical teams will be working directly with theirs to present the president-elect with a proposal for the national infrastructure plan before October 1,” he said after a meeting with local authorities according to news outlet Latinus. 

Salomón Jara, the governor of Oaxaca state in southern Mexico, said his proposals will include projects such as the Oaxaca-Tuxtepec highway, the capex for which could be as high as 30 billion pesos (US$1.5bn), as well as a highway to connect Oaxaca with the resort cities of Zihuatanejo and Acapulco in Guerrero state, which would cost an estimated 2bn pesos. 

Meanwhile, the governor-elect of neighboring Chiapas state, Eduardo Ramírez, said the priority for his state is to solve the migration issue by creating an industrial border hub to employ migrants coming from Central and South America. 

Javier May, Tabasco’s governor-elect, remarked that that the list of projects should include high expansions and upgrades to help bolster connections in the south of the country.

Sheinbaum’s plan to have an infrastructure committee dedicated to oversee project planning and execution is also progressing, with the draft bill for its creation under analysis by the national commission for policy improvement (Conamer), reported newspaper Reforma. 

The national construction chamber (CMIC) has also announced that it is working on a separate proposal comprising projects that should be prioritized by Sheinbaum’s administration, which will be ready in approximately four weeks.