The lower supply and demand of products stopped the plan of “maritime roads”.
The COVID-19 pandemic halted the transportation sector’s project to develop maritime highways, that is, the national maritime transportation service in the Gulf of Mexico, said Leonardo Gómez, general director of the National Association of Private Transportation (ANTP).
“With the pandemic, many international projects were stopped because problems were generated in the transportation market, in this case it was a problem of supply and demand, supply of ships and users,” said the executive in interview with El Heraldo de México.
This project consisted of generating highways for freight by ship between national ports to compete with other modes of transport. The idea is that users would have savings due to efficiencies in time and quality of services, he explained.
Gómez added that the talks with the Mexican Navy Secretariat to resume the project have not been restarted and that they also hope that the flow of goods will normalize internationally and nationally.
In December 2019, the first maritime highway was announced, which consisted of transportation service between the port of Veracruz and Progreso, in Yucatán.
It was to be inaugurated in June 2020, but the pandemic broke out in mid-March of that year and failed to materialize.
In this first route, the Mexican shipping company Baja Ferries, estimated an investment of 1.2 billion pesos, with an initial outlay of 100 million in port infrastructure to attend the operation of the ships.
In this service, they expected to mobilize products such as cement, beer, bread, and soft drinks, among others, belonging to firms interested in using this route.
Source: OEM