mexbiznews's blog

By Guy Taylor / The Washington Times

The front-runner in Mexico’s presidential race represents a party known for allowing drug-trafficking cartels semiautonomous control of certain regions during its rule in the previous century.

The prospect of a victory by Enrique Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the July 1 presidential election is troubling U.S. policymakers about future drug-control efforts with Mexico.

Noting that law enforcement and intelligence collaboration between the U.S. and Mexico has advanced at an unrecedented rate under President Felipe Calderon, a high-ranking Mexican official said, “A lot of policymakers in Washington would be concerned to see that evaporate.”

www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/3/resurgent-party-clouds-future-mexico-drug-war/

The Economist

In a futuristic art gallery which Carlos Slim opened last year in Mexico City, visitors can enjoy, among other things, a hall of rare coins and share certificates. Sometimes art speaks louder than words.

Slim is the richest man in the world. According to Forbes, he and his family have amassed a comfortable nest egg of $63 billion. (Bill Gates would be richer had he given away less of his stash, or Slim more of his.) In Mexico Slim is a giant: his companies account for more than a third of the stockmarket.

The Slim fortune was made in telephony. After growing moderately rich from property, mining and other businesses, Slim, the son of a Lebanese immigrant named Salim, bought Telmex, Mexico’s state-run telephone monopoly, in 1990.

Telmex still has 80 percent of Mexico’s landlines, and about 75 percent of its broadband connections. Telcel, its sister company, has 70 percent of the mobile market.

Both now belong to América Móvil, a Slim venture which has spread across 18 countries in the Americas and is the biggest or second-biggest player in all but three. With nearly 250 million subscribers, it is the world’s third-biggest mobile-phone company, and accounts for about 60 percent of Slim’s wealth, according to Forbes. Much the biggest market for América Móvil is Mexico, where profit margins in the stifled mobile sector are among the highest in the world.
 

www.economist.com/node/21546028

Fox News Latino

Researchers have developed "environmentally friendly tortillas" that are more nutritious, help prevent osteoporosis, slow the aging process and help fight obesity, Mexico's Center for Advanced Research and Studies, or Cinvestav, said.

A team led by Juan de Dios Figueroa Cardenas, of Cinvestav's unit in Queretaro, developed an environmentally friendly method for producing tortillas from gourmet corn that have a high nutritional content and double the shelf life without increasing the price of the final product, the center said.

Mexicans eat about 14 million tons annually of tortillas, which are one of the main sources of calcium for the population.

latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2012/02/01/environmentally-friendly-tortillas-new-hit-in-mexico/

By Jose de Cordoba
Wall Street Journal

Mexico's antitrust commission on Wednesday scuttled an attempt by the country's two major broadcasters to join forces in a mobile-phone company and challenge telecommunications mogul Carlos Slim, according to broadcaster Grupo Televisa and phone company Grupo Iusacell.

Mexico's Federal Competition Commission, or CFC, turned down Televisa's proposal to acquire a 50 percent stake for $1.6 billion in Iusacell, both companies said in statements. Iusacell is a small mobile-phone company owned by Ricardo Salinas, who also controls TV Azteca, the country's second largest broadcaster.

The agency, in a 3-2 vote, based its decision on the danger of collusion between Televisa and Azteca, said a Televisa executive. For instance, the agency was worried the two companies could work together to fix television advertising rates, the executive said, though he strongly denied that would be the case.

Iusacell and Televisa said they would appeal the decision. A spokesman for the CFC said he couldn't comment on the decision, which hadn't officially been made public yet.

The CFC decision is a setback for the two broadcasters as they take on Slim, the world's richest man, in the battle to offer "triple play services" —- television, Internet and telecommunications —- to Mexican consumers. Mexico's telecommunications market is worth some $26 billion a year, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204740904577197702865573034.html

Fox News Latino

Months before Mexico's presidential elections, political rivals are trading accusations over $1.9 million in cash found stuffed into a state official's luggage at a Mexico airport, a find that has inflamed rampant speculation about the possibility of organized crime or illegal campaign money influencing the July 1 presidential election.

The wads of cash, many of them bank-fresh 1,000-peso bills, were found when police decided to search passengers arriving on a private flight to Toluca, the capital of the home state of leading presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto.

The money came from Veracruz, a Gulf coast state governed by Peña Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI. The state official carrying the cash said he was making a hurried payment to a legitimate company for consulting services.

latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/02/01/mexicos-politicians-battle-over-1-m-found-in-bags/

By C.M. Matthews
Wall Street Journal

Mexico lost $872 billion to corruption, crime and tax evasion over the last 40 years, according to a new study from Global Financial Integrity.

The massive sum was leaked out of the country in illicit financial outflows between 1970 and 2010. It represented, on average, 5.2 percent of the country’s annual GDP.

“This is a devastatingly large amount of money for any developing country to lose,” GFI Director Raymond W. Baker said. “$872 billion is gone, which could have been used to develop the Mexican economy, to invest in education, to build roads, or to fight the drug cartels. The negative ramifications are huge for everyday Mexicans.”

The study, titled “Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries over the Decade Ending 2009,” found that illicit outflows from Mexico exploded from an annual average of $3 billion in the 1970s to $49.6 billion in the 2000s. It also found that the outflows drove Mexico’s underground economy, spurring drug smuggling and arms trafficking, among other things.

Global Financial Integrity, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, drew on data from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on external debt and trade mispricing to calculate illicit capital leakage. The study measures the illicit financial flows out of 160 different developing nations. In total, the group estimates the developing world lost $8.44 trillion from 2000 to 2010.

blogs.wsj.com/corruption-currents/2012/01/31/mexico-lost-872-billion-in-illicit-outflows-over-last-40-years-study-says/

By Karla Zabludovsky / New York Times

A drought that a government official called the most severe Mexico had ever faced has left two million people without access to water and, coupled with a cold snap, has devastated cropland in nearly half of the country.

The government in the past week has authorized $2.63 billion in aid, including potable water, food and temporary jobs for the most affected areas, rural communities in 19 of Mexico’s 31 states. But officials warned that no serious relief was expected for at least another five months, when the rainy season typically begins in earnest.

Nearly 7 percent of the country’s agricultural land, mostly in the north and center, has suffered total loss.
 

www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/world/americas/drought-and-cold-snap-cause-food-crisis-in-northern-mexico.html

By Crayton Harrison
Bloomberg

Mexico’s phone industry, dominated by billionaire Carlos Slim’s carriers, overcharged customers $13.4 billion a year from 2005 to 2009, hurting the nation’s economy, according to a new report.

The overcharging combined with the potential loss of business caused by high prices equaled 1.8 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development said in its report.

Latin America’s second-biggest economy should eliminate restrictions on foreign investment in telecommunications and should strengthen the powers of its phone regulator, the OECD said. The 70 percent market share of Slim’s America Movil in the mobile-phone business is “extremely high,” the OECD said.

Mexico “needs the socioeconomic boost provided by greater access to more efficient communication services, in particular high-speed broadband,” the OECD said.

Mexico had 10.5 high- speed Internet subscriptions per 100 habitants at the end of 2010, placing it 32nd among the 34 OECD member countries and less than half the average of about 25, the report showed.

America Movil is reviewing the documents, said an official who can’t be named under company policy. An official at the company’s Telefonos de Mexico fixed-line unit declined to comment.www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-30/slim-led-phone-industry-overcharged-mexicans-by-13-4-billion-oecd-says.html

By Aram Roston
Newsweek Magazine

There are usually just three ways for a trafficker to leave a Mexican drug cartel: go to prison, get killed, or become a government informant.

Two weeks ago, I had dinner at a restaurant near the Mexican border with a man who got out by the third route. He was, until recently, an important figure in the Sinaloa cartel’s drug-running operations, working indirectly for the boss, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

The drug dealer told me how, acting with the full approval of his cartel, he strolled into the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office for an appointment with federal investigators. So began an extensive operation by Chapo Guzmán’s forces to manipulate American law enforcement to their own benefit.

www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/29/el-chapo-guzm-n-mexico-s-most-powerful-drug-lord.html

Drinks Business Review

Coca-Cola intends to pump in around $1 billion in Mexico in 2012, as part of the company's $5 billion investment plan.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, CEO Muhtar Kent said the company will soon directly employ more than 1 million people in Mexico.

The company currently employs 93,000 people directly and another 800,000 indirectly in Mexico, which makes it one of the largest employers in the country.

The Atlanta-based company has doubled the size of its product range in the country over the past six years and now offers 60 brands and 400 products.

Mexico president Felipe Calderon said the US beverage giant's decision to expand its investments in Mexico 'will give a strong boost to the economy' and provide 'more and better jobs for Mexicans.'

The Coca-Cola offers nearly 500 sparkling and still brands. The company's portfolio includes 12 other billion dollar brands, including Diet Coke, Fanta, Sprite, Coca-Cola Zero, vitaminwater, Powerade, Minute Maid, Simply and Georgia Coffee.

softdrinks.drinks-business-review.com/news/coca-cola-to-invest-1bn-in-mexico-in-2012-300112