Plans have been finalized by Mexico to develop Punta Colonet as a West Coast Mexican alternative to the U.S. ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach.
The proposal includes a deep-water Pacific Ocean port on Mexico’s Baja California peninsula about 150 miles south of Tijuana that could serve as a destination for the 30 million containers headed to North America from China and the Far East each year, according to a report published Tuesday in the Los Angeles Times.
The on-again, off-again plan to develop Punta Colonet has been discussed as the number of containers from China grows and multi-national corporations out-sourcing their North American manufacturing to China are looking for cuts in transportation costs.
The lure of Punta Colonet is the cheaper Mexican transportation labor available if Chinese containers arrive there to be moved into the interior of the U.S., rather than the more expensive American labor in Los Angeles and Long Beach.
The model to develop Punta Colonet is based on Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas, two Mexican ports on the Pacific south of Texas, which have been developed by Hutchison Ports Holdings, a Chinese port operations firm with close ties to the communist Chinese government and military.
As WND has reported, containers from China off-loaded at Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas bypass the labor costs of the U.S. Longshoreman Union dock workers, United Transportation Union railroad workers and U.S. truck drivers.
Manuel Rodriguez Arregui, Mexico’s secretary of transportation, announced in February his intention to publish in June a request for proposals for the operation of a deep-water port at Punta Colonet. His goal is to see work on the port begin next year, open for business in 2010 and be completed no later than 2015.
The plans are to take advantage of a public-private partnership, or PPP, in which private developers would work with government officials to use government powers to acquire whatever land or other rights were needed for the port to be developed. The capital for the project would be provided by the private developers, who in turn would seek long-term contracts to operate and derive revenue from the port.
In turn, the proposals submitted by private development companies can be expected to pay the government of Mexico one-time up-front seven-figure sums for the rights to develop the project and operate it for as long as 45 years after completion.
The project, which may take as much as $9 billion in private capital to develop, will involve some 7,000 acres at Punta Colonet, about as large as the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach combined.
The goal is to construct a modern port capable of handling annually 8 million containers or 20-foot equivalent units, according to a report published by the San Diego Union-Tribune, which was based on an interview the newspaper conducted with Eugenio Elorduy Walther, the governor of Baja California in Mexico.
The containers will then move to the U.S. interior on a 180-mile rail line expected to connect the port at Punta Colonet with existing rail systems at Yuma, Ariz.
The Union-Tribune also reported Hutchison Port Holdings has now bought property at Punta Colonet, and Union Pacific is seeking options on a railroad right-of-way in Yuma.
The Los Angeles Times said a competitive bid may be organized by Mexican Carlos Slim Helu, the world’s second-richest man with a net worth Forbes estimated in 2006 at over $30 billion.
The consortium would involve teaming up with Miguel Favela, the general director of Mexican operations for cargo terminal operator MTC Holdings of Oakland.
Favela told the Los Angeles Times Slim’s IDEAL infrastructure company, Impulsora del Desarrollo y el Empleo en America Latina SA de CV, and the Mexican mining and railroad giant Grupo Mexico could team up to grab the deal.
WND previously reported plans implemented in China to ship millions more containers to North America every year.
The Chinese are investing $15 billion to develop Yangshan, a reclaimed island the size of 470 soccer fields in the East China Sea off Shanghai. The plan by 2010 is to operate 30 berths accommodating post-Panamex megaships, each capable of carrying up to 12,500 containers, three or four times the size of the typical container ships now operating.
Currently handling 20 million containers a year, Yangshan is expected by 2010 to export up to 30 million containers a year, with the vast majority destined for North America.
WND also has reported the Canadian government is developing plans to open West Coast ports including Vancouver and Prince Rupert as part of Canada’s publicly declared “Asia-Pacific Gateway and Corridor Initiative” transportation policy.
Media wishing to interview the author of this article, please e-mail Tim Bueler.
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