Regulation of ports in Mexico

Mexico has 117 ports and terminals that handled 288 million tonnes of goods in 2013. Four ports are considered to be national hubs: Manzanillo, Lazaro Cardenas, Altamira and Veracruz. The SCT has the legal attributions to granting concessions, permits and authorisations for building, establishing, administrating, operating and exploiting works and goods in ports, maritime terminals and port installations. Challenges include: to develop an integrated logistics strategy for the main four Mexican ports to increase the volume of containers that could be carried on railroads to increase port efficiency by: establish a dedicated areas free of border controls for coastal shipping to introduce a specific regime to facilitate transhipment to open customs and other inspection agencies more often 24 hours per day to develop policies to simplify port gate operations and to consider opening up the maritime cabotage market.