By Chris Aspin and Noel Randewich
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, the world's third richest man, said on Thursday his infrastructure firm IDEAL is interested in bidding to build and operate an airport in Mexico's Riviera Maya resort area.
Speaking at the Reuters Latin American Investment Summit, Slim also said IDEAL (IDEALB1.MX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is planning to bid widely in tenders for toll highway concessions that new President Felipe Calderon has announced.
"There are lots of (highway concessions) coming up and we are going after lots of them," Slim, 67, said.
A senior Mexican transport official told Reuters last week that Mexico will soon tender the construction and operation of an airport in the Riviera Maya, a growing resort near Cancun on Mexico's pristine Caribbean coast.
Slim said his companies would be interested in bidding for the airport as well as for a range of other infrastructure projects across Mexico and Latin America.
"IDEAL's end objective is to make infrastructure investments and if that infrastructure is an airport or a highway or a water plant ... it's all the same," he said.
Slim also he was interested in participating in a $5.2 billion project to widen the Panama Canal, possibly through his Inbursa bank (GFINBURO.MX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).
"It would be syndicating financing with a group of banks lending money," he said.
Panama is planning to widen its famous waterway, which carries around 4 percent of world maritime trade between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, to make way for larger ships.
Infrastructure construction firm Cicsa (CICSAB1.MX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), which Slim also controls, would also be interested in doing part of canal expansion, he said.
HIGHWAY SELL-OFF
Mexico's government has said it expects to receive close to $25 billion over the next six years from selling more than a dozen highway concessions to private companies.
To help raise cash to improve road infrastructure, the government will hand out 30-year concessions to build and operate toll highways, many of which had been taken over by the state in the 1990s after a botched earlier privatization program.
Slim said there was no limit to how many highway concessions IDEAL ought to own and that each would be evaluated based on likely profitability.
He said IDEAL could always tap financial markets for extra funding to buy road concessions deemed attractive. Continued...
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