Mexico’s president has announced the construction of a new international airport for the capital city, saying it will quadruple the capacity of the current one. 

Enrique Peña Nieto says the project will cost more than $9 billion, and have six runways and a capacity of 120 million passengers a year. He says it’s been clear for decades that the capital's overtaxed airport needed to be replaced. Pena Nieto says it’ll be Mexico's largest public infrastructure project in recent years, and called it "Mexico's gateway to the world."

He made the announcement during his second state-of-the-nation address, in which he defended reforms instituted since he took office in 2012. He predicted a brighter economic future, while acknowledging recent performance has disappointed.

More than a decade ago, protests led authorities to scrap a planned new airport on the outskirts of Mexico City. The new proposal is to build on federally owned land next to the existing facility.