Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has announced that Mexico City is to get a new $9.2bn airport, which will be the largest in Latin America.

Serving as a regional hub, the new airport will aim to decrease transport costs and boost tourism. It will also be able to handle four times the traffic of the existing airport, which is currently the second busiest in Latin America.

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The new airport is expected to have an initial capacity for 50 million passengers a year.

"The new airport is expected to have an initial capacity for 50 million passengers a year."

The airport construction will be awarded to a group of companies, the names of which will be announced later this week, and will create approximately 160,000 jobs.

The new airport will be built to the east of Benito Juarez International Airport, which handled a total of 31.5 million passengers last year.

The new airport will initially have two runways that will be used simultaneously. Construction is expected to be completed in late 2018 or early 2019.

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Mexico City Airport currently handles a third of all air passengers in Mexico and more than half of all air freight. It handled approximately 31.5 million passengers in 2013, a third of which were international passengers.

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