Consortium vows equal use of local labor in construction

A Chinese-led consortium has won the bid to build Mexico's first high-speed rail project, a deal which experts see as global recognition of China's high-speed railway technology.

The consortium, including the China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC), CSR Corporation Limited and several Mexican construction firms, will build a high-speed railway connecting Mexico City with the industrial hub of Queretaro to reduce the commute time from 2.5 hours to 58 minutes, according to the Mexican Ministry of Communications and Transport.

Construction of the 210-kilometer railway is scheduled to kick off at the beginning of 2015 and begin operation in 2017, said Ying Erqiang, deputy general manager of CRCC.

The contract is worth $4.4 billion.

When completed, the project aims to carry some 27,000 passengers per day at a maximum speed of 300 kilometers per hour, and would be Latin America's first high-speed railway.

The high-speed rail is expected to create some 60,000 jobs and cut Mexico's carbon emissions by 95,000 tons per year, according to the Mexican transportation ministry. "In a country with 120 million inhabitants, Mexico's infrastructure must quickly get up-to-date to meet the present and future needs," Transport Minister Gerardo Ruiz Esparza told a news conference.

Chinese President Xi Jinping met his Mexican counterpart Enrique Pena Nieto during his visit to the country on June 2013, vowing to strengthen cooperation in high-speed rail construction.

In the past, China's railway industry focused mainly on parts of projects, such as construction or equipment export, Sun Zhang, a professor at Shanghai-based Tongji University, told the Xinhua News Agency.

"It's a landmark project for the industry that will [see it] export a whole package, including construction, equipment and technological standards," said Sun.

Wang Mengshu, an academic at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told the Global Times that China's railway industry has comparative advantages. "China can build 1 kilometer of high-speed rail for around $33 million while foreign companies need $50 million," Wang said, adding that Chinese companies are also more efficient than other foreign firms at construction.

To date, the CRCC has participated in the construction of dozens of overseas railway construction projects, including a high-speed railway from Ankara to Istanbul in Turkey, said Zhuo Lei, chairman of CRCC International Co Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CRCC.

The Mexican transport ministry said that 16 companies decided to bid last year, including industry giants Mitsubishi of Japan, Alstom of France, Bombardier of Canada and Siemens of Germany. However, the Chinese-led consortium was the only bidder to submit a proposal by the October 15 deadline and fulfill all technological and legal requirements.

Sun Hongbo, a Latin American studies expert with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that the bid will also deepen economic ties between the two countries.

Previous economic cooperation between the two countries lacked huge investment projects as an impetus for deepening ties, he said.

"The project not only benefits the Chinese railway industry, but could also bring jobs and investment to Mexico," Sun Hongbo said.

The China-led consortium has promised that the number of local workers will not be fewer than the number of Chinese workers and that construction materials will be purchased through global tenders, people.com.cn reported.

Four Mexican companies will be involved in the construction, the report added.

Apart from Mexico, other countries in the region, including Brazil and Argentina, also plan to build high-speed railways.

Sun Hongbo pointed out that the Mexican project will be an opportunity to showcase Chinese technology to them.

Jiang Bo and Du Tianqi contributed to this story