Plan to extend Maya Train to Guatemala is full steam ahead after bilateral talks

Mexico and Guatemala person confirmed their volition to widen the Maya Train to Guatemala pursuing a bid of talks betwixt Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and her Guatemalan counterpart Bernardo Arévalo. 

According to some leaders, the bid would besides grow into Belize. 

“If we, the 3 countries, negociate to physique a improvement hub for the well-being of our people, it volition beryllium a wholly antithetic imaginativeness for Guatemala and Mexico,” Sheinbaum said, adding that she hopes the obstruction transportation into the Central American countries volition beryllium utilized for some rider and cargo transportation.

Although Guatemala lacks an progressive obstruction network, Arévalo said successful a property league that a transportation with Mexico would person “enormous potential” for the improvement of some nations and the region. 

“Connecting the Maya Train with Guatemala and yet Belize is simply a imaginativeness we share, and for this we agreed to beforehand the commencement of trinational negotiations, arsenic good arsenic the respective feasibility studies,” helium said.

Arévalo said that immoderate of the agreements that helium signed with his Mexican counterpart see the extortion of Guatemala’s earthy resources. 

Much of bluish Guatemala is protected forest, truthful the Maya Train would person to link indirectly via Ciudad Hidalgo successful Chiapas, Sheinbaum has said previously. (Pau de Valencia/Unsplash)

“We presumption the Maya Train arsenic a improvement solution that not lone does not contradict, but alternatively strengthens the hunt for a sustainable exemplary that intelligibly protects the country’s biological, earthy and taste heritage,” Arévalo said, adding that “At each times, it has been precise wide that the Maya Train volition not transverse immoderate existing reserve areas.”  

Meanwhile, Belize’s Prime Minister John Briceño said that the Maya Train would facilitate commerce betwixt the 3 countries, with his state playing a cardinal role. 

“We request to proceed to marque the constituent that Belize is the nexus for Mexico and Guatemala,” he stressed. 

Overall, the bilateral gathering betwixt the leaders of Mexico and Guatemala addressed nationalist concern successful projects aimed astatine ensuring economical improvement successful regions wherever northbound migration is prevalent. 

“People, successful general, don’t migrate for pleasure; they migrate retired of necessity,” Sheinbaum noted. “They don’t permission their towns for escapade but alternatively owed to economical necessity.” 

With reports from El Universal, El Financiero, EFE and El País