https://www.borderreport.com/regions/mexico/mexico-upgrading-rail-line-to-rival-panama-canal/

SAN DIEGO (Border Report) — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum this week updated ongoing work to rehabilitate a rail link between the Gulf and the Pacific Ocean through Southern Mexico.

It’s called the Corredor Interoceánico del Istmo de Tehuantepec or Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in English.

It was originally built in 1907.

Sheinbaum says modernizing this rail line will provide a strategic option to the Panama Canal.

She also believes it would transform the area into a hub of development offering “a key link to the economies of Central America.”

The idea is to upgrade the rail line to transport materials and products between Coatzacoalcos, in the Gulf to Salina Cruz, in the state of Oaxaca along the Pacific Ocean, reducing transportation time and costs to shipping companies that now use the Panama Canal.

Mexico believes the new rail line will be ready by this time next year.

Most of the money for the rail line is coming from private investors. Sheinbaum says this will create a lot of economic growth in the entire Western Hemisphere, saying the link will become “a logistical nucleus for production in Latin America.”

The plan also calls for the modernization of the ports involved, construction of industrial parks and bridges, and 12 so-called “hubs of development.”

According to the Mexican government, 60 percent of the population living near the isthmus line lives in poverty or extreme poverty.

Sheinbaum believes the commerce brought on by the project will bring jobs and prosperity to the region.