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Mexico City - Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched in late September the construction of a large tourist resort on the coast of the Mexican Pacific state of Sinaloa, in a move similar to the creation of Cancun 25 years ago on the Caribbean. The new tourist project is set to be twice as large as Cancun and will be built in Teacapan, in the municipality of Escuinapa, some 120 kilometres south of the beach resort of Mazatlan.

"This will be the most relevant project boosted by the public sector, the most important in the last 25 years and the most important in the first two decades of the 21st century," Calderon said as he opened a fair on real estate investment and tourism in Mexico City.

Public investment in the project will amount to some 470 million dollars and it is expected to pave the way for private investment worth 6.2 billion dollars.

The new resort is expected to have 12 kilometres of beach and two marinas. By 2025 it is expected to host 3 million tourists per year, to generate 3 billion dollars in income and to provide employment for some 78,000 people.

As Calderon spoke, a Greenpeace activist protesting with a sign reading, "No to predator tourism", attempted to take off her coat to display only a bikini and high heels, but was led out of the hall before showing off her curves outside.

Greepeace complains that such projects destroy ecosystems and "leave the environmennt in the hands of speculators."

"The policy of 'boosting' tourism through the sale of public land at ridiculous prices or prices below its real value exclusively favours private interests, while it severely impacts the environment," the organization said.

Amid a severe real-estate and financial crisis on a global scale, Tourism Minister Rodolfo Elizondo stressed that tourism in Mexico grew by 5 per cent this year, with 13.6 million tourists and an income of 8,475 billion dollars by July.

The state of Sinaloa is the stronghold of the Sinaloa drug cartel led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

Apart from the resort in Cancun, Mexico has built resorts in Ixtapa and Huatulco, on the Pacific coast, in recent decades.