TIJUANA – Mexico's federal government plans to publish bid specifications for the massive Punta Colonet container port and rail project south of Ensenada by the end of September, Luis Tellez, the country's secretary of transportation and communications, said Thursday.

“We are very advanced with Punta Colonet,” Tellez said during a Mexico City news conference, speaking of the government's preparation of its rules for the project. “I don't want to commit to a date ... I will commit to (one) before the end of this quarter.”

The megaport would be about 150 miles from San Diego, and would route Asian cargo through Mexico to the American heartland. It would be built in tandem with a rail link that would carry containers from Punta Colonet to the U.S. border.

The project would transform a small coastal community into a port that rivals Long Beach and Los Angeles, which both face increasing congestion with the rapid growth of trans-Pacific trade.

A number of groups have expressed interest in the project, which Tellez said would entail an initial private investment of $4.5 billion. The release of bid specifications by the Mexican government had been announced for last month, but the magnitude of the project caused delays, Tellez said.

“The complexity of this project ... is enormous,” said Tellez, comparing it to the $5 billion expansion of the Panama Canal. “But we are very close to putting out bidding terms.”

The project would require development of numerous spinoff projects such as a desalination plant to supply water to the region. New roads would be required to complement any future rail line.

The project would also require construction of a new border crossing that would exclusively handle the numerous cargo containers being shipped to the United States, said Jose Rubio Soto, a Baja California official charged with overseeing complementary plans. Rubio said no location has been chosen for the proposed crossing.

“We won't build anything until the project has been bid out,” Soto said in Tijuana Thursday morning, following a discussion of the project before a civic group, Grupo Madrugadores.

In the meantime, the state of Baja California has been working on guidelines for urban development around the port, where federal and state officials are planning for a city of more than 200,000. It would be up to the federal government to conduct an environmental review of the project once a bidder has been chosen, he said.

At its inception, the port would be able to handle about 2 million containers, officials said, but its capacity would grow to five times that amount.

Federal officials have said that the concession to develop and operate the port and railroad would be granted to the same consortium. The group would develop the port and rail line and lease terminals to other operators.

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