Is Mexico’s $325 billion-dollar infrastructure stimulus plan enough?

Breaking down Sheinbaum’s massive building promises to brass tacks.

On queue, the Mexican government announced a big infrastructure investment plan yesterday in the wake of intense talks with the country’s most important economists and its biggest financial institutions.

Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration has now promised an investment of $3.6 trillion pesos (that’s “trillion” with nine zeroes after the decimal point)—approximately $325 billion dollars—on energy, roads, ports, trains, education, and health infrastructure.

The figure—to be spread out from now until 2030—sits slightly under the $5.8 trillion pesos the taxman is expected to collect in the whole of 2026. In other words, a large additional amount of money to be invested in essential projects.

The Mexico Political Economist has explained the context and logic behind this new infrastructure drive, along with the strengths and weaknesses of this approach.

This announcement allows us to being to disentangle a couple of questions: Whether the government is in a position to fulfill these promises, and whether—if they were achieved—they would put Mexico on the right track out of its economic rut.

Big investments certainly have big downstream effects—roads open up access to new markets; bigger ports make trade more efficient—. They also have direct effects on economic growth—as steel, concrete, and builders are paid for to create the structures in the first place.

But, first things first, despite the eye-watering figures announced at yesterday’s presser, can Mexico pull actually this plan off?

Where’s the money coming from?