New Mexico City International Airport shielded for long term construction

Regardless of the victor of the 2018 General Election, public works of the New Mexico City International Airport (NAICM) are shielded before any attempt to shut it down, says the Minister of Communications and Transport (SCT), Gerardo Ruiz Esparza in an interview with EL UNIVERSAL.

Ruiz Esparza, underlined the importance of the project as one of the largest public works ever built in the history of Mexico and noted that the NAICM is shielded by social, legal and financial fronts aimed at securing its long term construction.

“This public work is not the result of a whim of this administration. Efforts to build the NAICM started way back with former *Zedillo, Fox and Calderón administrations and entails both a national and international track record to its construction.”, says Ruiz Esparza.

The social shielding for the construction of the New Mexico City International Airport (NAICM) includes the staffing of 40,000 people for the construction stage and of 100k permanent jobs for the airport’s regular operations upon its projected opening in 2020.

For its part, the legal shielding extends to public work contracts with 157 companies, for an amount of over MXN$100,000m, which represent over 70% of the works, resulting from 118 public tenders, and would seriously complicate matters in the event these had to be terminated before completion of public works.

In financial terms, the shielding inscribes a $MXN186,000m investment for its construction with an estimate of a 3% loss in the gross domestic product (GDP) should construction of the NAICM be halted.

“Mexico is becoming an important high-tech, car-manufacturing, air space, electronic and electrical production destination. If we lack the transportation hub to receive people and goods for export and import we will be limiting our development as a country exceedingly.”, said Esparza.

Ruiz Esparza noted that the current passenger and load transfer hub in Latin America is based in Panama when it should be located in Mexico. However, limitations in the capacity of the existing Benito Juárez International Airport in Mexico City have not allowed our country to become the benchmark of reference in the Latin American transportation market, according to Ruiz Esparza.

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*In reference to former sexennial administrations of Ernesto Zedillo from the ruling National Institutional Party (PRI), which ran through 1994-2000, and following conservative National Action Party (PAN) administrations of Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón, from 2000-2006 and 2006-2012 respectively.