Mexican President Felipe Calderon speaks in Ensenada, where he opened bidding for construction of a port 150 miles south of the U.S. border. (The Associated Press)

ENSENADA, Mexico - President Felipe Calderon opened bidding Thursday for construction of a huge new seaport that could eventually rival the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the largest port complex in the United States.

Mexico's $5 billion Punta Colonet project would transform a wind-swept Mexican bay 150miles south of the U.S. border into a booming city, creating 80,000 jobs, drawing freighters from Asia and funneling manufactured goods north.

"We're looking to be sure we don't fall behind in making Mexico a strategic logistics platform for trade and global investment," Calderon said while touring the foggy beach where the port will stand.

A planned railroad would link Punta Colonet to the United States, allowing freight to skip Southern California traffic and head directly to points across the Midwestern U.S., including Chicago. Planners have yet to determine where the tracks would cross the border - although El Paso, Texas, and Yuma and Nogales, Ariz., have been mentioned.

The port would be the largest infrastructure project of Calderon's administration, which has pledged hundreds of millions of government dollars for highways, railroads and airports in the last year in an effort to create jobs and pump cash into Mexico even as the world economy slows.

This time though, Calderon is seeking private bidders to develop the port in exchange for temporary operating rights.

The bidding process should conclude

By 2020, the port should be able to annually handle 6 million TEUs, or 20-foot equivalent units, a measurement used to estimate container traffic - more than double the nation's current freight capacity, Transportation Secretary Luis Tellez said.

Los Angeles and Long Beach, meanwhile, processed a combined 15 million TEUs in 2007 - some 40 percent of all freight entering the U.S., including 80percent of imports from Asia.

Port of Los Angeles spokeswoman Theresa Adams Lopez downplayed the impact of competition from the Mexican port.

"This is a project we've been hearing about for many years now and it is going to take many, many more years before they get it up and rolling," Adams Lopez said. "So in the short term, there is no effect on us. In the long term, the way the volumes have been going, our general manager's feeling is that there are plenty of boxes to go around."

Adams Lopez added that about half of the goods coming through the Port of Los Angeles are destined for Los Angeles and the surrounding four counties.

The implication is that for those products, a southern diversion to a Mexican port would make no sense.

Punta Colonet would serve "more like a relief valve for us than a direct competitor," Adams Lopez said.

The Punta Colonet project represents an unknown challenge for the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

For the Mexican port to serve the U.S. market, an expensive rail system must first be built, Kyser noted.

It is also unclear how the current project to expand the Panama Canal would affect cargo traffic from Asia to West Coast and Mexican ports, which some ships may bypass altogether to reach the East Coast directly through the canal, Kyser said.

Another factor that could mute Punta Colonet's impact is the growth in the Southern California economy, which may end up accounting for nearly all of the traffic through the twin ports, leaving little additional capacity for other regions of the country, Kyser said.

Indeed, long-term shipping forecasts are bright: Long Beach expects its freight traffic to double by 2028, according to port spokesman John Pope, and the two ports plan to spend more than $2 billion on infrastructure improvements to prepare.

Punta Colonet hopes to steal away some of that new business.

The relatively remote desert around Punto Colonet, however, has no natural customer base. The port will rely entirely on its proposed rail line to the U.S. - which could stretch as far east as the Mexican state of Chihuahua, across from New Mexico and Texas, Rubio said.

Providing infrastructure and services to the projected new city of 150,000 near Punta Colonet will pose a challenge for Baja California, a state already struggling to keep up with staggering growth in Tijuana.

Staff writer Muhammed El-Hasan contributed to this article.