Baja Business

BajaBiz 3 January 2008 Marine Industries No Comment

The Mexican government is promoting the development of a chain of 22 marinas around Baja California Get ready to hear quite a bit about Baja California’s Escalera Nautica over the next few years. Literally translated it means “Nautical Ladder,” but a better description is “Nautical Route.” This planned marinas are along the Pacific and Sea of Cortes coasts of the Baja, followed by the same along the Sonora and Sinaloa mainland states with Sea of Cortes coastlines. The plan calls for 22 full-service marinas, 10 of them new. Of the 12 existing, seven will be improved and five are judged as already adequate. The 10 new marinas will be located on sites with natural shelter, or bays, a feature the Baja peninsula has in abundance. Five of these are to be in Baja California, three in Baja California Sur, and one each in Sonora and Sinaloa. The Mexican government has designated Escalera Nautica as the anchor tourist project during the Fox administration. Of course, it was presented during the last two months of the Zedillo administration, so Fox inherited it. Since the Mexican government has decided to spend about $222 million on the project during the years, the several billion dollars needed for hotels, golf courses, et al., will have to come from private sources. And most of it will have to come from foreign sources. Reports state that “the project is not only sustainable from an environmental point of view, but also in terms of profits, and it will improve the socioeconomic situation of the communities and local populations, which provides service in the tourist centers, as a way of fighting poverty