The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this month that a coalition of shipping interests wants Mexico to build a $1-billion port 150 miles south of Tijuana on the Baja peninsula.
They hope to link the port to California with a new rail line connecting to the Imperial Valley. The new port at Punta Colonet would compete with seriously congested Los Angeles and Long Beach ports.
The L.A. Times said the Punta Colonet facility would require construction of roads, housing and other infrastructure on what is now farmland. It would be one of the largest public works projects ever undertaken in Mexico.
Lobbyists for shipping interests are telling the Mexican government there would be enough traffic and investment to underwrite a major portion of the cost to build the port and a new city to serve it. At stake is a share of the estimated $200 billion in revenue generated annually by shipping through California.
"We have to get Colonet developed. There are no other viable West Coast options," Walter J. Romanowski, an executive with Los Angeles-based Marine Terminals Corp., told the L.A. Times.
Romanowski said he wanted the right to build a complex of berths, warehouses and cranes that by 2012 could be running 1 million standard container units a year, about one-seventh the current volume at the Los Angeles port. Construction of the proposed Mexican port would take at least five years, the shipping companies say.
The L.A. Times said one reason for the new port proposal is container traffic out of China growing at an explosive rate - 15% or more per year - overwhelming the Long Beach and Los Angeles port complex, the world's third-largest.
Tie-ups at the L.A.-Long Beach ports last year sparked international anxiety when a flood of Asian cargo clogged docks, rail lines and highways, forcing giant container ships to idle offshore.