The federal government announced this Monday a first mixed investment plan to promote the development of 503 km of road infrastructure (highways) and involves an amount of 54,299 million pesos to complement public investment, without further details being offered.
The announced projects are: Sonoyta-Puerto Peñasco, Córdoba-Orizaba, Cardel-La Tinaja and Puerto Veracruz branch, La Pitahaya SLP- Querétaro, Uruapan-Zamora and Nueva Italia-Lázaro Cárdenas.
One of the participating companies considered is Pinfra, with highway concessions in Michoacán, and integrating private investment in concessions run by the National Infrastructure Fund (Fonadin) is also being evaluated.
“Through new mixed investment schemes, we no longer want to call it public-private, but mixed investment, where risks are shared and benefits are also shared, which also allows us to increase the infrastructure of our country in those places where it is possible. , without giving up public investment, which is fundamental for development,” explained President Claudia Sheinbaum.
The details of the scheme will be announced next month by the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transport (SICT).
This measure seeks to put aside the Law of Public-Private Associations (APP) that promotes the participation of the business sector and which was published in the Official Gazette of the Federation on January 16, 2012. This Law also did not please the former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador because he considered that they mostly benefited companies and ended some contracts early.
The PPP impact
Despite the rejection of the aforementioned model, two of the highways that are intended to be launched with mixed investments have as their origin the figure of unsolicited proposal raised by the PPP Law, in which a company proposes the project and assumes the cost of the studies. so that the corresponding authorities can carry out their evaluation and, eventually, issue a public tender with benefits for the proposer (for example, if you are not a winner you will receive compensation for the studies carried out).
In this case, there are the La Pitahaya-Libramiento Noreste de Querétaro highways and the Cardel-La Tinaja highway with a branch to Veracruz, which were contemplated in the SICT’s 2024 work plan to give them continuity, since they already had the endorsement of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit.
However, due to not having the acceptance of the then president of Mexico, they were put on hold and are now going to be reactivated with the new mixed investment model.
The Sonoyta-Puerto Peñasco highway had also been contemplated since last year to add private investment
“I have on my desk a company’s proposal to modernize the highway with an investment of around 3,000 million pesos. The idea is to completely renew it and expand it a little, from the line to Puerto Peñasco, it includes building the Benito Juárez de Sonoyta boulevard, so that from the moment you enter Mexico you see a first-world highway,” the governor of Sonora said last September. Alfonso Durazo.
In this case, it was proposed that only the foreign tourists who will use it will pay the toll.
