Mexico. The Airport Group of Mexico City estimated that the cost of the new air terminal in the capital of the country will rise to 199 thousand 134 million pesos, due to the depreciation of the Aztec currency before the dollar.
Requiring materials brought in from abroad, the New Mexico City International Airport (NAICM) has a cost component of 40 percent in U.S. dollars, which caused its construction to become 17.8 percent more expensive, since it was launched, in 2014.
The project was initially valued at 169 billion pesos or $13 billion, with an exchange rate of 13 pesos to the dollar. However, after the Mexican peso depreciated 45 percent since its announcement, the exchange rate-sensitive part raised the price of the total work in national currency to 199,134 million pesos with a dollar to 18.79 pesos, according to estimates by the Airport Group of Mexico City (GACM).
"Between 30 and 40 percent of the project is sensitive to the exchange rate because they are commodities (materials) that are quoted internationally or equipment that is going to be imported, however, our income is denominated in dollars because the TUA (Airport Use Fee) is indexed in the exchange rate, in that way, the 6 billion dollars that we are going to capture in the market cover the appreciation of these inputs and yet we have a benefit left," explained Federico Patiño, general director of the GACM.
