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Mexico’s dream port coming true

Dan Grech Aug 17, 2007

TEXT OF STORY

Scott Jagow: Products from China — the good, the inedible and the defective — they’re flooding our country’s ports every day. Up and down the West Coast, ports are scrambling to keep up. Many have plans to expand, but there’s only one plan for a whole new megaport, and it just got a big boost this week. Dan Grech reports from our Americas Desk at WLRN.


Dan Grech: There’s an uninhabited bay 150 miles south of San Diego, and Mexico has long dreamed of building a megaport there.

But until this week, that vision was held up by a complex legal dispute between a mining company and Mexican authorities.

Now it’s been resolved, and the Colonet port can finally go ahead. So are other Pacific ports trembling at the potential new competition?

Theresa Adams Lopez: It’s more of a relief valve than a direct competitor to us.

Theresa Adams Lopez is a spokeswoman for the Port of Los Angeles. She says the Colonet port would handle about 3 percent the volume seen by the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.

Lopez: There are plenty of boxes to go around. And another port in the same vicinity won’t hurt our intake too much.

Construction firms around the world are scrambling to bid on the massive megaport project.Mexico says it’ll announce the winner in about a year.

I’m Dan Grech for Marketplace.

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