Mexico City, Mexico - Chinese construction, rail, and related companies are investing in key projects in what is being called "Mexico’s Economic Corridor of the North," involving the states of Nayarit on the Pacific coast and Chihuahua which borders the United States.

During last year’s visit to Mexico by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the two governments signed a Comprehensive Strategic Alliance, and China is looking at a number of investment possibilities, including plans to invest $35 billion in Mexico’s energy sector, El Universal reported on August 8, 2014.

Two major projects are about to get underway shortly, thanks to the organizing of Roberto Sandoval, Governor of Nayarit, and Cesar Duarte, Governor of Chihuahua. One is a new deep-water port in Nayarit, and the other, a rail link from that port, through Chihuahua and into the US state of New Mexico, with its terminus at the Santa Teresa port of entry.

Sandoval and Duarte were in China in late July and early August to secure financing for what Sandoval calls the "China-Nayarit-Chihuahua-US" development corridor. While these are private projects, the Mexican government must grant authorization for them to proceed. It should also be noted that the Chinese involvement in the construction of an inter-oceanic canal through Nicaragua is also technically a private sector project, run through the Chinese company HKND.

Governor Duarte announced on September 5th that China’s ambassador to Mexico, Qiu Xiaoqi, had notified him that the Development Bank of China will provide $1 billion to finance the Nayarit-Chihuahua-New Mexico rail project. Railroad construction company China Hyway Group Ltd., owned by the Development Bank, will partner with other Chinese firms and begin construction before the end of this year.

Governor Sandoval, who has made repeated trips to China, announced in late May that several large Chinese private-sector companies will invest $3.5 billion to build "Puerto Nayarit" over the next three years which, when completed, will be the largest deep-water port in Ibero-America. It is expected to generate 25,000 jobs in the state and spark a major economic boom, as well. The port will be the only one in North and Central America able to dock large container-bearing ships.

According to the state of Nayari't official website, in three months Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Chinese President Xi Jinping will lay the first stones of what will be "the first project of the Mexico-China Alliance."