Guatemala govt expects approval of US$150mn cable car this year

Guatemala’s government is expecting congressional approval for construction start of the 1.2bn-quetzal (US$153mn) stage one of the Aerometro cable car system this year.

The 8.9km cable car with connect the capital’s busiest districts. 

In the best case, congress will approve the project by December, national competitive program (Pronacom) coordinator Jorge Rolando Paiz Klanderud told BNamericas.

“That’s the expectation of the government and the investor,” he said, adding it would be helpful if President Alejandro Giammattei got involved to speed up approval.

Although the 25-year concession to construct and operate the system was awarded almost a year ago to a consortium comprising Cablevía de Guatemala, Desarrollos Residenciales Victoria, Desarrollos Torinos and Doppelmayr Guatemala, work has not started because the legislative must send the proposal to a committee. But it remains unclear which committee.

The project was introduced to congress in August.

Pronacom, which is promoting investments to help economic recovery, has aided the project’s investor in permitting cases and with administrative solutions. 

It has also taken note of investors’ needs and problems.

For example, Paiz said the consortium not only had to spend resources to win the contract, but must also wait for congressional approval. In Guatemala, almost all privately financed projects have to be approved, even if they emerged from a transparent bidding process.

In addition, "they have to make a series of imports of about 950 containers," he said, adding that Pronacom is helping with processes related to tax authority SAT.

Aerometro will be fully privately financed. It will have 11 stations connecting the capital and Mixco city.  

The project is the second attempt at building a cable car system. In 2018, the US$100mn Cablemetro project was scrapped after a failed bidding process, due to a lack of funding and design plans.