Mexican infra giants to be present at AMLO-Biden summit

Representatives of at least two Mexican infrastructure giants will be in attendance at the CEO Dialogue summit to be held on Wednesday in Washington D.C. between Mexican and US political and business leaders. 

The high-level summit, hosted by the US Chamber of Commerce and Mexico’s leading business association CCE, was arranged as part of Mexican premier Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) visit to the US capital to meet President Joe Biden. The event will involve discussions about investment in Mexico, local media have reported. 

Although 20 business leaders from each country have been invited, the full list of attendees has yet to be released, according to daily Milenio. 

However, one confirmed to be there is Mexican business mogul Carlos Slim, the head of conglomerate Grupo Carso, owner of Cicsa – an infrastructure firm that has a key role in several of AMLO’s flagship projects such as the Maya train. 

The CEO of rail company Kansas City Southern de México (KCSM), Oscar Del Cueto, also confirmed his participation at the event by posting a photo (pictured) on Twitter on Monday at Washington DC airport with AMLO and his wife, and the head of CCE, Francisco Cervantes. 

KCSM is one of Mexico’s two big rail operators and it operates a network that extends between southern Mexico and Kansas state. The company also has several ongoing projects this year with estimated capex above US$122mn

On June 24, José Ignacio Martínez, head of Mexican think tank Lacen, told BNamericas that the summit was intended to tackle three main topics: investments in southeastern Mexico, the 2020-24 national infrastructure plan (PNI) and the deployment of 5G in the country. 

He also said that, with this delegation of business leaders, AMLO was looking to demonstrate that there is significant investor interest in the southeast, where the Maya train, Olmeca oil refinery and Tehuantepec isthmus corridor are all being built.