Mexico's economy chief brushes off concern over canceled airport project

Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 09:58:12|Editor: Yurou
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MEXICO CITY, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Mexican Economy Minister Iledfonso Guajardo on Tuesday dismissed suggestions that the cancellation of Mexico City's new airport project could spark an economic crisis.

"That this could be a factor that leads to a crisis, I think is an interpretation that is a tad exaggerated," Guajardo told reporters.

The most important element for a healthy economy is transparency and compliance with the law, he added.

His comments came on the heels of Monday's announcement by Mexican president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador that he would cancel construction of Mexico's new international airport after a four-day nationwide poll showed a majority of the voters were against the project.

Touted as the biggest infrastructure project of the current administration, the new airport became a point of contention due to its high construction costs, high maintenance costs, environmental impact and a less than transparent bidding process.

Its feasibility -- built on a swampy lake bed in Texcoco, 32 km from Mexico City -- and price tag have been a constant source of controversy since the project was announced.

Still, Lopez Obrador's announcement sent Mexico's benchmark indices down on Monday, registering their worst results since November 2016, when Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. The peso also slid slightly against the U.S. dollar.

Mexico uses a "free floating" currency exchange system that often sees large fluctuations before recovering.

"We saw the market's reaction, but it's clearly a reaction, it isn't a trend yet," the minister said.

"In the past two and a half years we have had surprises where it (the peso) has reached levels that sanity and economic reality did not sustain, and it returned to much more accessible levels," he added.

The airport project, considered to be outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto's largest legacy, is expected to require some 13.3 billion U.S. dollars to build, and millions more to maintain annually.

However, supporters of the project say that with several billion U.S. dollars already invested in laying the foundations and buying building materials, the cost of cancelling the project would be huge.

Lopez Obrador is scheduled to take office on Dec. 1.

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