Mexico road projects to be hit by budget cuts

Mexico's federal government budget cuts will affect the construction of some roads projects, transport minister Gerardo Ruiz Esparza said.

On Wednesday, finance ministry SHCP announced a total 2016 spending cut of over 132bn pesos (around US$7bn), or 0.7% of GDP, including slashing 100bn pesos from the budget of national oil company Pemex.

The administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto has targeted the construction of 80 roads, with 53 having been built so far. The budget cut will affect some of these projects, and the administration will prioritize the most important ones, Ruiz Esparza said without going into further details.

Earlier this month the transport and communications ministry SCT said it would invest 61bn pesos (US$3.3bn) in new road infrastructure this year.

Finanace minister Luis Videgaray said the cuts would not hit Mexico City's new international airport, the Guadalajara light rail transit (LRT) system or the Mexico-Toluca interurban train projects.

Mexico's congress had approved for this year a budget of 105bn pesos for SCT, down 16.5% from 2015.

The ministry had planned on spending 43.6bn on its road improvement program, and 24.5bn to build and modernize nearly 553km of the national road network.