• 3 min de lectura
• 3 min de lectura
The main challenge facing Mexican ports today is not only to strengthen security controls, but also to prevent overregulation from eroding the country's operational efficiency and logistical competitiveness against other international markets.
For Luz Alicia Iturbe de Garay, Legal Advisor for the Integral Port Administration (API) of Tamaulipas, the lack of legal certainty has become one of the biggest obstacles to attracting investment to the port sector, even when there are infrastructure projects with high strategic potential.
"The uncertainty of the direction our country is taking generates that lack of confidence," she stated during the conference Current Situation of the National Port System: Where We Are and Where We Should Go, organized by the College of Civil Engineers of Mexico (CICM). She recalled that the original spirit of the Port Law was precisely to offer legal certainty to investors through Port Development Master Programs with a long-term vision, up to 30 years, considering the level of capital involved in developing specialized terminals and acquiring high-tech port equipment.
"All of this has led to port operations and maneuvers being carried out in the shortest possible time, which places the country and its ports in a competitive status," she maintained.
In this context, she explained that currently regulatory and technical supervision processes have become stricter, incorporating verifications that previously did not exist and which now slow down procedures and authorizations for infrastructure development.
Added to this, she said, is the delay in concessions for the federal maritime-terrestrial zone by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat), with dossiers accumulating up to six years awaiting resolution.
"We have procedures waiting for six years or more, and that stops investment, or as has happened, the dock is built and then the saying 'it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission' comes into play," she warned.
The specialist also pointed out that the change of control of the port sector from the then Ministry of Communications and Transportation —today Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation— to the Ministry of Navy significantly modified the relationship with investors and transformed regulatory processes.
"Previously, the relationship with investors was fostered because that is the job of a port administrator, to seek investment for their port; it is a company looking for investors, not alienating them. Sometimes being so strict in their military training distances us from commercial matters," she commented.
In this regard, she considered that the current challenge for the Mexican port system is not only technical or legal, but one of institutional integration, and therefore called for strengthening coordination between authorities and specialized organizations in infrastructure, engineering, and regulations.
This vision was shared by Jesús Campos López, president of the XVI Board of Directors of the CICM, who maintained that the transfer of the port sector marked a turning point in the country's maritime-port governance, by modifying regulatory processes, technical supervision schemes, priorities, and authorization times for projects.
"Today we face other challenges: how to balance control and competitiveness, how to provide legal certainty to investors without sacrificing the State's leadership, how to modernize our ports to respond to the demands and reorganization of global trade," he explained.
Campos López added that, in addition to the regulatory component, structural challenges related to civil engineering persist, including dredging to maintain great depths, the expansion of docks and yards, last-mile rail and road connectivity, as well as the resilience of infrastructure against climate change and extreme weather events.
"These are challenges that cannot be solved with a single discipline or a single institution," he concluded.
