The federal government has run out of resources to contract pre-investment studies for eleven railway projects, according to notifications from the Railway and Multimodal Transport Regulatory Agency (ARTFM) to the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP).

For analysts, this situation is due to the fact that priority has been given to the Mayan Train, a project whose cost is already estimated at 230 billion pesos, that is, an extra cost of 74 billion over the amount originally proposed, as EL UNIVERSAL reported a few days ago.

ARTFM has notified the tax authority of the need to reschedule the contracting of pre-investment studies, since there is no money for it.

Thus, the projects without allocation are the Hidalgo-AIFA Suburban Train, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec Passenger Train, the Naucalpan-Buenavista Light Train, the Xalapa Light Train, the Tapachula-Chiapas Airport Train, the Colima Regional Train, the Monterrey-Saltillo Interurban Train, the Monterrey-Nuevo Laredo Interurban Train, the Morelia Light Train, the Coahuila Suburban Train, and the Campeche Light Train.

In various reports, ARTFM acknowledges the insufficient budget to carry out these works, even in works considered a priority for this administration, which together required around 430 million pesos.

At the same time, this newspaper reported last week that the National Fund for Tourism Development (Fonatur) spends 25 billion pesos on consulting for the Mayan Train.

Juan Carlos Machorro, head of the transactional and financial practice area at Santamarina y Steta, said that it is not valid to privilege the Maya Train, a flagship project “that has so far proven to be a poorly planned project without responsible allocation and use of resources, and that probably does not have the operational, financial or social viability of the other eleven.”

This situation creates a problem of poor planning and responsibility of officials in the allocation of resources, he added, who will have to answer for these enormous distortions.

"It is inconceivable that they spend 25 billion pesos on consulting and advisory services for a train, and do not have 430 million available for studies of another eleven that could later prove to be of greater importance to the economy and society," Machorro stressed.

In the inkwell

The federal government alludes to the lack of resources for the studies of the Suburban Train that will link that entity with the new Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) and the Passenger Train project of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

Isidro Enrique Zepeda Ortega, head of the General Directorate of Studies, Statistics and Mexican Railway Registration of ARTFM, asked the SHCP to reschedule the contracting of companies for both cases because there is no budget.

In documents dated March 23 of this year, in possession of EL UNIVERSAL, the official explained that both works had to have been contracted and delivered in 2021, but the scheduled resources were not assigned to them.

For the pre-investment studies of the Suburban Train to AIFA, 42 million 372 thousand pesos were estimated, and for the Passenger Train of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, it was 25 million 745 thousand pesos.

ARTFM had warned that one of the main risk factors for carrying out pre-investment studies was precisely “not having the timely availability of resources for investment.”

In this same case are the pre-investment studies for the Naucalpan-Buenavista Light Rail Train, with a cost of 53.6 million pesos, designed to determine the feasibility of implementing in a first stage, a passenger railway system in light rail mode, on the disused railway infrastructure of the "N" Line, from the historic Río Hondo station, in the Municipality of Naucalpan de Juárez, to the Buenavista terminal of the Suburban Train, over a length of 14.6 kilometers.

Also the pre-investment studies for the Colima-Manzanillo Regional Train, where 41.4 million pesos would tentatively be spent to determine the feasibility of implementing 100.5 kilometers in the metropolitan area, starting in the municipality of Colima, connecting with the municipality of Armería and ending in the municipality of Manzanillo (Port City of Manzanillo), using the railway infrastructure of Lines “I and IP”.

Another project is the Coahuila-Monterrey train, whose studies for 100 million pesos should have started this year, although there is not enough funding.

Also its 264.8 kilometer extension that would connect Monterrey, Nuevo León, with Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, on the southern border with the United States, a project even committed by the head of the Executive to the current governor of Nuevo León, Samuel García.

The state leader went further, announcing in July of last year that bilateral cooperation between Texas and Nuevo León will be fundamental and strategic for economic recovery, which is why work would be done on the Monterrey-San Antonio train project, which would be part of the railway route that would cross Mexico, the United States and Canada as part of the T-MEC railway corridor.

The lack of resources also forced the rescheduling of pre-investment studies for works such as the Integrated Transportation System in the Eastern Zone of the Valley of Mexico: Trolleybus System for the Chalco-Tláhuac and Chalco-Santa Marta sections, and the Rehabilitation of Line A of the STC Metro.

In this case, it was Minerva Pérez Reséndiz, Deputy General Director of Multimodal Transport and Logistics of ARTFM who issued the corresponding letter to reschedule 27.5 million pesos for this year.

And tourism?

The tourist economy specialist of Grupo Empresarial Estrategia (Gemes), Humberto Molina, described it as regrettable that the resources from the Non-Resident Right (a fee charged to all foreign tourists in the price of the plane ticket) are being allocated to the Mayan Train, instead of promoting the country's tourist centers, especially at a time when all destinations that compete with Mexico are being aggressive in their promotion.

“Everyone wants to recover what they lost in the pandemic and destinations that compete with Mexico are carrying out very attractive campaigns to attract tourists; this is something we need to be able to consolidate the recovery,” he said.

“Sooner or later we will feel the lack of tourism promotion, because in 2020, 2021 and part of 2022 we saw this favorable situation where Mexico was one of the few destinations open to travelers from the United States, without any requirement, but as other countries begin to open, that situation no longer exists,” said Molina.

Source: El Universal