Are we about to see Arab exuberance on the Isthmus?
You have seen that artificial island shaped like a palm tree somewhere. It is on the coast of Dubai and is called Palm Jebel Ali. Next to that emblematic figure stands the port of the same name, which is run by a company headed by Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem.
That company is DP World, a giant of global ports that in that location alone has a storage capacity of 19.3 million containers, which compares, let’s say, with the six million of Veracruz, one of the main ports in Mexico.
But according to Paul Berger, they also want a port in Mexico, the first in the country, according to what this specialist in logistics and supply chains published on Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal.
Coincidentally and in parallel, the Mexican government is looking hard for investors willing to risk capital in the development of infrastructure and industry in the Interoceanic Corridor that crosses the country from Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, to Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz.
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According to the journalist from The Wall Street Journal, Ahmed bin Sulayem said he is looking for a Mexican port that is close to a plot of land large enough to house a huge industrial park.
As an example, he pointed precisely to the model he used as president of the Jebel Ali Free Trade Zone, which helped consolidate Dubai as a center of maritime trade.
“We would love to have a combination of port and industry” in Mexico, Sulayem told Berger. “It really provides a lot of cargo for the port and makes it very easy for people who produce to ship it immediately.”
DP World operates 82 maritime and land terminals in more than 40 countries on six continents, including Canada, within the North American free trade region.
A port in Mexico would solve a problem for DP World, which has been unable to establish ports in the United States due to political reluctance to admit investors from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in critical infrastructure. It would allow this company to integrate nearshoring opportunities for those who wish to export from Mexico to the north.
DP World is a multinational logistics company based in Dubai in the UAE.
It was founded in 2005 through the merger of the Dubai Port Authority and Dubai Ports International. It claims to manage 70 million containers that are transported by around 70 thousand ships a year, which represents approximately 10 percent of the world’s traffic.
The company expanded rapidly through acquisitions, buying CSX World Terminals in 2005 and P&O, the fourth largest port operator.
In Mexico, the most aggressive bet in port matters is today represented by the Interoceanic Corridor, a century-old project to connect the Pacific Ocean with the Atlantic in a possible competition for the Panama Canal. It crystallized precisely during the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who invested in railroads and other infrastructure.
Until now, the most visible private investments come from the Promoter of Development, Industry and Well-being of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (Proistmo).
This organization led by Javier Aguilera Peña boasted the beginning of the construction of the Development Pole for Well-being Texistepec (Podebis), which will focus on the pharmaceutical, agro-industrial and electrical businesses, with an investment of around 100 million dollars.
DP World plays in other leagues. In the first half of this year it reported sales of 9,335 million dollars, 3.3 percent more than last year and in that semester it invested 994 million dollars in different projects.
Ahmed bin Sulayem, head of DP World, is aware of certain restrictions on foreign investment in national ports, but according to what he told the aforementioned New York newspaper, this difficulty can be resolved.
Source: elfinanciero
