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In 2019, Mexico made a huge step toward economic development by creating the CIIT as a public body to integrate the ports of Coatzacoalcos and Salina Cruz with railway transport and regional development. The decree explicitly describes the project as a logistics platform linking those ports by rail and promoting economic development in the Isthmus.
After several significant construction projects, the 308.5 km rail line, the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, began operating in December 2023.2 For electronics manufacturing, the value is not just the “new railway.” It is the value proposition for local manufacturing and global distribution created by this particular combination of ports, railway, industrial parks, and tax incentives. All this development creates an attractive new manufacturing corridor along the CIIT.
Strategically, the CIIT gives Mexico’s electronics industry Pacific access for Asian components, and Gulf/Atlantic access for U.S. East Coast and European markets. The CIIT corridor is being positioned as a logistics backbone for Mexico's electronics and semiconductor industries, not just automotive production.
This two-ocean logistics and manufacturing access should be attractive to the development of industrial zones for electronics and semiconductor investment. It is expected to become part of the supply chain supporting advanced packaging, PCB fabrication, EMS operations, and chip assembly in southern Mexico and along the U.S.-Mexico manufacturing corridor.
Though the CIIT may have found its place and time in the global distribution networks, the CIIT is not new. Instead, it has a long history marked by multiple swings of fortune.
The current CIIT, long known as Line Z, is an old interoceanic railway. The present-day Line Z of the Tren Interoceánico now runs between Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, and Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, but the route dates to the 19th century. The core idea has always been to use the Isthmus of Tehuantepec as Mexico’s shortest overland bridge between the Gulf/Atlantic side and the Pacific. In the 19th century, this allowed ships and cargo to avoid the long route around South America via the Strait of Magellan.
To continue reading this article, which appeared in the September 2026 SMT007 Magazine, click here.
