Salina Cruz, Oax. Fifty hoppers loaded with Sinaloa corn left this port on Friday afternoon certain for Coatzacoalcos. On the finish of the 308-kilometer rail journey, the grain – which started its journey in Topolobampo – would return just a few steps to Jáltipan to be processed and, finally, a part of it could be re-shipped within the type of flour and remaining merchandise to different nations.

Unloading, shifting, processing and reloading is a form of cycle that sums up the challenge of the Interoceanic Hall of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (CIIT). Past the mere crossing of products, much like what occurs within the Panama Canal, the purpose is to create an industrial belt that receives uncooked supplies at one level and that, because it passes by means of the continental strait, is remodeled into one other product. with higher added worth.

The concept of ​​establishing an industrial improvement within the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to supply intermediate and remaining items has been round because the final six-year time period below the so-called Particular Financial Zones (ZEE), which might be granted to non-public corporations. The challenge was taken up once more throughout this administration, below the supervision of the Navy, a division that was additionally entrusted with the administration and operation of the ports and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec Railroad (FIT).

Considering of the CIIT as a competitor to the Panama Canal is reductionist, officers defined throughout a tour of among the works that comprise it. Its goal will not be restricted to being a passage for items from Asia to the east coast of the US, however to find, alongside a strip of greater than 3 thousand hectares between the Pacific and the Atlantic, industrial complexes that additionally generate formal employment within the area.

Like a soma dice, CIIT is made up of a collection of corporations and organizations of various sizes and specializations. One half is the FIT, 1,096 kilometers (km) of railroad tracks for the transportation of cargo and folks; one other is the Improvement Poles for Effectively-Being (Podebis), 12 territories with primary providers and tax incentives to draw funding; and, lastly, 4 ports –Salina Cruz, Puerto Chiapas, Dos Bocas and Coatzacoalcos– that function entry and exit gates for international commerce.

The FIT is a system that may present passenger and freight providers by means of three railway strains: Z, which matches from Coatzacoalcos to Salina Cruz (308 km); FA, which matches from Coatzacoalcos to Palenque (329 km); and Okay, from Ixtepec to Ciudad Hidalgo (459 km). It’s the skeleton of a zone made up of the 12 Podebis to be developed within the area, during which it’s meant to find electrical and digital industries; semiconductors; electrical autos; auto elements and transportation tools; medical gadgets; prescribed drugs, agro-industries; metals and petrochemicals; amongst others.

However simply because the rehabilitation of the railroad – which in accordance with officers from the Navy is already carrying cargo on the Z line within the afternoons and evenings, in order to not coincide with the passenger service – is required the enlargement and restoration of the ports, in order that they’ll obtain ships of comparable draft to those who transit the Panama Canal.

A ship unloads corn to be transported on the Isthmus Railway. Photograph by Victor Camacho

Technological customs

The so-called Panamax and New Panamax, named after the canal, are navigation mounds that measure 2.4 and three soccer fields, respectively, at their base. To obtain this sort of vessel, a second breakwater was in-built Salina Cruz to shut the horseshoe to make the port extra secure. The work is a rock wall weighing greater than 176 thousand tons within the sea and that’s greater than a kilometer and a half lengthy.

Along with the bodily infrastructure, an important half for CIIT to symbolize an alternate, the complement The Panama Canal is at the moment present process the modernization of customs. In line with the ship captain, Julio César Cabrera Alonso, basic director of the Nationwide Port System Administration (Asipona) in Salina Cruz, this sort of funding is already being made.

The fiscal route is being outfitted with new non-intrusive tools to examine cargo getting into and leaving the port utilizing X-rays and to higher management and expedite international commerce.Cabrera Alonso commented. That fiscal routeHe added that the port is being in-built such a manner that when unloading merchandise from a ship, all of the tools permits for a steady movement and if any anomaly is detected, the inspection of those containers is carried out on the subsequent port.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has commented that the target of the CIIT is to not compete with the Panama Canal, however to be a complementThe waterway is 80 kilometers lengthy and takes about eight to 10 hours to cross. Nevertheless, the wait to cross can take as much as two weeks because of congestion exacerbated by the drought, which lowers the water ranges wanted to maneuver its hydraulic elevator system.

Cabrera Alonso commented that on this scenario, one benefit of the CIIT is to scale back the switch time; crossing the Isthmus by rail takes eight to 10 hours for cargo providers. Nevertheless, this motion doesn’t keep in mind the time for unloading and loading of ships, which don’t must unload their merchandise within the Panama Canal to be moved by means of the locks – a form of hydraulic elevators in order that ships can journey as much as 27 meters above sea degree – after which return to the ocean.

Therefore the opposite aim of CIIT: the transformation of uncooked supplies into intermediate and remaining items within the Podebis, is the challenge that reveals the best potential, particularly in mild of the relocation of world provide chains – recognized by numerous anglicisms that incorporate shoringthe commonest nearshoringNavy officers say they haven’t but finalized a challenge to move worldwide items from one port to a different within the hall, though corporations from China, Singapore and Spain have approached them.

For now, there are operations with nationwide corporations and industries to maneuver merchandise within the hall.

Edgar Javier Vilchis Bravo, frigate captain and administrative specialist on the FIT, says that cargo providers have been supplied since October. The primary shoppers embrace the cement corporations Cruz Azul and Cemex. The settlement with Maseca – the vacation spot of the grains from Topolopambo – is current and negotiations with Bachoco are properly underway. Along with the providers that Petróleos Mexicanos makes use of and would require.