Mexico City, Mexico — President López Obrador says Mexico’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec Interoceanic Corridor will be connected to Guatemala. He says the project will include three train lines with the rehabilitation of seaports to boost merchant transportation.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador led the progress report on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec Interoceanic Corridor, a comprehensive project that includes three railway lines and the rehabilitation of seaports, which will boost the movement of goods.
Raymundo Morales Ángeles, the General Director of the Tehuantepec Isthmus Interoceanic Corridor project explained that Line K links Ciudad Ixtepec, Oaxaca and Ciudad Hidalgo, Chiapas, a region bordering Guatemala, over 459 kilometers.
“We are going to become more and more united with Guatemala and we are going to allow the development of the southeastern region of Mexico, but also Central America,” he said.
In this railway project, under the direction of the Navy, an intermodal yard is being built in Suchiate, Chiapas and a passenger station is being established in Ciudad Hidalgo.
Simultaneously, Line K is being rehabilitated up to the international bridge. The Government of Guatemala plans to build an intermodal yard in Tecún Umán and to modernize railway lines in the interior of the country.
Through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation (AMEXCID), Mexico will donate 400,000 linear meters of rail, sleepers and track fixing systems with the purpose of incorporating Guatemala as soon as possible into the connectivity network that will improve the flow of cargo.
By mid-September, the first stage of Line K will be completed up to Arriaga, Chiapas. The overall progress is 58 percent, he said adding that the project will be delivered to the people of Mexico in the third quarter of 2025.
In the report, the Secretary of the Navy, José Rafael Ojeda Durán, detailed that Line Z is completed and in operation. It connects the Pacific and Atlantic oceans from the ports of Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, to Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, in a maximum journey time of seven hours.
Since its inauguration in two stages, in September and December 2023, this means has mobilized a total of 44,313 passengers and 109,665 tons of different types of cargo including clay, cement, corn and sand.
The Navy is promoting development in the municipality of Matías Romero through the installation of a railway complex consisting of a single dispatch center, workshops, garages, training center, corporate building and rehabilitation of the historic station.
To date, the overall progress is 26 percent and its completion is scheduled for June 2025.
The rehabilitation of 95 kilometers of track from Coatzacoalcos to Medias Aguas, Veracruz , previously concessioned to Ferrosur, continues. It will be a suburban train that will provide service to isolated communities such as San Juan Guichicovi. The project will be completed in June of next year.
The FA Line from Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, to Palenque, Chiapas, where it will interconnect with the Maya Train, will be 100 percent operational in September. Since December 2023, it began to move cargo to the Roberto Ayala terminal.
The federation is rehabilitating seven stations: Cuichapa, Roberto Ayala, Teapa, Juárez, Pino Suárez, Pakal Na, and Las Choapas, while building seven sidings and two transfer yards.
The two strategic ports of this project, Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, and Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, have the capacity to move around 300,000 containers per year. At their consolidation point, they will reach 1.4 million containers per year.
The Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec is a profitable project . In the case of the railway lines, the break-even point will be reached in the first quarter of 2027 with 1,732 million pesos. Meanwhile, the seaports no longer report a deficit, said Director Morales Ángeles.
Overall, this major mobility project has a multimodal logistics platform made up of 1,189 kilometers of railway tracks on three lines with the capacity to carry different types of double-stack cargo and transport passengers using American, European and suburban trains.
Security tasks are supported by a Marine Infantry Brigade with 2,512 elements in four battalions covering 21 detached units.
President López Obrador said that Line Z is a project of global dimension. The Government of Mexico is enabling this strategic step due to the current growth of the market and maritime transportation between Asia and America.
Before representatives of the media, López Obrador reiterated that the Interoceanic Corridor project will continue in the next federal government headed by President-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo.
