The newly installed president of Mexico has set out plans to build 3,000km of railways, a million homes, and a series of logistics hubs as part of an ambitious national development plan.

Claudia Sheinbaum made the pledges in her inaugural speech on Tuesday in the congressional chamber of Mexico’s parliament.

The housebuilding element will be carried out in conjunction with the National Housing Fund for Workers, a state mortgage lender, and the Institute for Social Security and Services for State Workers, which offers healthcare and social security to federal employees.

The aim is to provide homes for young people to rent homes and eventually own. The standard of the existing housing stock will also be upgraded.

For rail, the plan is to build eight routes between 20 cities, including between Mexico City and Nogales in the northwest and Nuevo Laredo in the northeast.

Other connections will run from the capital to the industrial city of Querétaro – a project with a difficult history – as well as Hermosillo and Veracruz in the southeast.

Work will also continue on the Interoceanic Corridor project, intended to provide an alternative to the Panama Canal by linking Coatzacoalcos in Veracruz state on the Atlantic coast, and Salina Cruz in Oaxaca on the Pacific.

Another project, between Mexico City and the nearby city of Pachuca, will start on Sunday, Sheinbaum said.

Maya train expansion

There are also plans for a minor expansion of the Maya train, one of the flagships of former president López Obrador’s government. This will be extended to Puerto Progreso in the northwest of the Yucatán peninsula.

Sheinbaum aims to leverage Mexico’s strategic location between the Americas to attract private and foreign investments. This will involve developing “Wellbeing Development Hubs” and 100 industrial parks throughout the country. The aim, she said, was to attract “companies that foster innovation, good wages, environmental protection and national content”.

To support the hubs, Sheinbaum plans to develop 10 industrial corridors across Mexico. These corridors will focus on a range of sectors, inclduing renewable energy, smart manufacturing, automotive and aerospace, agribusiness and logistics.

The president also emphasised the need to modernise Mexico’s road infrastructure. One of her administration’s first actions will be initiating the repair of 4,000km of federal highways. The plan also includes the expansion of strategic highways across the country.

She mentioned in particular the following:

• Baja California Sur: The Transpeninsular Highway and the Los Cabos interchange.
• Michoacan: Uruapan–Zamora and Lazaro Cardenas–Uruapan.
• The Toluca-Zihuatanejo highway.
• The superhighway between Pueblo and Amozoc.
• In the state of Sonora: Bavispe–Nuevo Casas Grandes and Guaymas–Chihuahua.