The passenger train from Mexico City to Querétaro is the most advanced in its construction, since the other sections of the railway system proposed by President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo are barely in preliminary studies, reported Roberto Albores Gleason, president of the Infrastructure Commission of the Chamber of Deputies.
“There are two sections that are more advanced, which are Mexico and Querétaro, and the others are in the preliminary studies,” he said during the panel Connecting Mexico: Legislation and challenges in road, railway and logistics infrastructure, organized by the College of Civil Engineers of Mexico (CICM).
The Railway Transport Regulatory Agency, which was created in the Sheinbaum government, will have to speed up its work in the construction of passenger trains, explained the deputy.
Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo’s plan is to build the Mexico-Nuevo Laredo Railway System, the AIFA – Pachuca train, the Naucalpan-Buenavista Light Rail and a passenger train from Mexico City to Nogales.
“It will depend on the speed of the Agency and the priorities of how the Executive branch will exercise the budget,” said the legislator, who calculated that Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo’s government has a budget of 91 thousand 723 billion pesos for the construction of passenger trains.
He added that investment in the railway sector has remained a priority, which is very positive because it strengthens regional connectivity, reduces logistics costs, improves economic competitiveness, and contributes to sustainability.
“The spending on roads shows reductions that must be reversed to guarantee access to rural communities, promote tourism and take advantage of relocation by improving the connection between production centers, reducing transportation times and strengthening logistics competitiveness,” said Roberto Albores Gleason.
The legislator of the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico (PVEM) commented that the multi-year budget is not a reality in Mexico, since year after year there is a negotiation of the distribution of public resources.
“I feel that this is a barrier to the professionalization and institutionalization of many things in Mexico, which limits us from generating public policies that can establish the mechanisms to define the delivery and distribution of resources,” he said.
One of the issues to work on in a public policy is to develop an agenda of a network or collection of infrastructure projects to avoid them disappearing with changes in government, he explained.
“Every executive project carried out must be protected and not lost, as well as having a bank of projects. Today, a specific expense for a sector cannot be set in the budget,” said Albores Gleason.
Gabriela Jiménez, a deputy from Morena, told the engineers that the government is promoting the use of mixed investment to support the Mexico Plan.
“This government of the Fourth Transformation announced the Mexico Plan, which contemplates the new mixed investment scheme as an effective tool for the transformation of the second level of transformation,” declared the legislator.
She added that in order to carry out the portfolio of investment projects we need new mechanisms, that is, that the private initiative and the government work together to launch joint projects such as highways and railroads.
The objective is to create the best conditions and investment opportunities that translate into well-being for Mexicans, concluded the Morena deputy.
Source: forbes
