MEXICO CITY, Sept 20 (Reuters) – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday September 20th, he did not believe a media report that said Singapore was interested in finishing a new Mexico City airport project that he had canceled a few weeks before he took office in December.
Earlier this month, prominent Mexican journalist Carlos Loret de Mola wrote in a column in El Universal newspaper that Singapore wanted to put forward a plan to Lopez Obrador that would enable the completion of the abandoned airport on the eastern flank of the city.
The project had been started by the administration of former President Enrique Pena Nieto.
Citing diplomatic sources, Loret said the idea had arisen in the context of a visit that Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong could make to Mexico later this year.
Lopez Obrador cast doubt on that report when asked at a regular news briefing on Friday whether he would allow Singapore to finish the job.
“I don’t think this proposal is true,” he told reporters. “I think it’s an opinion like many others. I don’t think it’s a serious proposal.”
Lopez Obrador, a veteran leftist, scrapped the partially built $13 billion airport on Oct. 29 on the basis of a controversial referendum his political party had organized.
He argued the project was tainted by corruption and geologically unsound, but the decision shocked many investors and wiped billions off the value of Mexican financial assets.
As an alternative, Lopez Obrador wanted to convert a military base in Santa Lucia north of the city into a commercial airport. However, construction on that project has been held back by a raft of legal injunctions to prevent it going ahead.
Lopez Obrador told the news conference that the lawsuits against the Santa Lucia project were being dealt with and that there would soon be “no legal obstacle” to its construction.
(Reporting by Dave Graham; Editing by Bernadette Baum for REUTERS)
