featured

By Cyntia Barrera Diaz
Reuters

Regulators have hinted they might give billionaire Carlos Slim the nod to enter the Mexican television market, but the world's richest man will face a long battle before hitting the screens.

Competition and telecom officials recently said they might allow Slim's Telmex, Mexico's top fixed-line phone provider, to offer customers television service.

Mony de Swaan, head of Mexico's telecom regulator Cofetel, told Reuters last week it was "possible and desirable" to give approval to Telmex, which has sought permission to add television to its telephone and Internet services for years. Competition commission Cofeco has voiced a similar stance.

But market watchers think Telmex, a former state-run company that delivers basic telecom services to around 70 percent of Mexican homes, will face plenty of hurdles before it can access the coveted new service.

"It will take time, past 2011," said analyst Gregorio Tomassi of Santander.

www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67P4DI20100826

By the CNN Wire Staff

Mexican investigators have asked diplomats from El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador and Brazil to help identify the bodies of 72 presumed migrants discovered at a ranch in northeast Mexico.

The nationalities of the deceased have not yet been confirmed, according to a statement released by Mexican President Felipe Calderon's office late Wednesday.

Brazil said its foreign ministry was informed there were at least four Brazilians among the dead, the official Agencia Brazil news service reported Wednesday evening.

The statement by Calderon said the Mexican president "strongly condemns the acts that caused the death of 72 people, suspected to be migrants," and said that drug gangs are repeatedly turning to extortion and kidnapping of migrants as their resources and recruits dwindle.

"This is a result of the activity of the state against them, which has significantly weakened the operational capacity of criminal groups," Calderon's office said.

www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/08/26/mexico.dead.bodies/

By Ramiro Alonso
El Universal

The recent global economic crisis contributed to a 55.5 percent increase in corporate fraud committed in Mexico between 2008 and 2010, ranking Mexico as the country with the most fraud in Latin America.

According to the 2010 Survey of Fraud by KPMG Consulting, white-collar crimes in 2008 cost 11.7 billion pesos ($896.34 million) in damages to the Mexican economy. Two years later, the total amount of corporate fraud amounted to 18.2 billion pesos ($1.39 billion).

In the last 12 months, the average amount stolen in each incident was $850,000, considerably higher than the $650,000 for all companies operating in Latin America.

"The results of the survey show a worrying reality," said KPMG managing director Arturo del Castillo.

In Mexico, 75 percent of businesses reported being victims of various types of fraud in the last twelve months, he said. Economista

www.eluniversal.com.mx/finanzas/81567.html

By Cyntia Barrera Diaz
Reuters

Mexican President Felipe Calderon said he did not expect to propose tax increases in the 2011 budget after his initiative to boost government revenues for the current year was rejected by opposition parties.

"I foresee that in general there won't be a proposal to boost taxes ... for the 2011 budget," Calderon said in an interview with Radio Formula this morning, Tuesday.

The president introduced sweeping new taxes in last year's budget, which drew stiff criticism, but have been credited by administration officials with lessening the economic crisis.

In the radio interview, Calderon, who is due to submit his 2011 budget plan in early September, also said that a main factor behind Mexico's slow economic recovery following a deep recession was weak consumer confidence.

"The consumer is skeptical. There is a negative feeling and that is hurting consumption," he said.

www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2424917020100824

Reuters

A consortium of Mexican businessmen has bought a 95 percent stake in the holding company that controls troubled Mexican airline Mexicana de Aviacion, a spokesman for private equity group Advent International said over the weekend.

Advent International helped put the deal together, but the U.S. private equity firm is not participating as a shareholder in the consortium, called Tenedora K, according to a statement obtained from Advent's Mexican public relations office.

Mexicana, one of Mexico's two major airlines, has halted more than a dozen international routes and stopped selling tickets after requesting creditor protection earlier this month under Mexico's insolvency law.

The consortium bought 95 percent of Nuevo Grupo Aeronautico, which controls Mexicana as well as domestic airlines Mexicana Click and Mexicana Link, the statement said.

"Tenedora K is a company formed by a group of Mexican businessmen as a vehicle to capitalize the mentioned airlines, with the aim of rescuing them from the critical financial and operating situation they are in," the statement said.

www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2117726720100821

By Carlos Manuel Rodriguez
Bloomberg

Petroleos Mexicanos, Latin America’s largest oil producer, expects to hire foreign oil companies for the first time to explore and produce in the Gulf of Mexico as it seeks to arrest a five-year decline in output.

The Mexico City-based company plans to offer four exploration and production contracts as early as September and a further three contracts by the end of the year, Carlos Morales, director of exploration and production, said in a telephone interview.

Bonuses will be paid based on the volume and speed of oil recovered and the safety of the projects, he said.

Pemex expects Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Chevron Corp., to help develop reserves after changes to Mexico’s oil laws in 2008 allowed it to hire foreign companies.

The contracts follow a moratorium on U.S. offshore deepwater drilling after the BP spill, the worst in U.S. history.

www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-20/pemex-seeks-foreign-producers-to-develop-offshore-fields-for-first-time.html

By Crayton Harrison
Bloomberg

Carlos Slim is facing the Mexican government’s biggest effort in years to bring more competition to the wireless market dominated by his America Movil. The billionaire is likely to turn back the challenge, analysts say.

Grupo Televisa and Telefonica plan to offer wireless high-speed Internet across Mexico for the first time after winning airwaves in a government auction, the nation’s first since 2005. The companies also won the right this year to use public fiber-optic lines to fortify their networks and compete against America Movil.

While those new assets might bring Mexicans lower prices for mobile phones and services such as Web access, they’re unlikely to do real damage to Slim’s profits in Mexico, said Richard Dineen, an analyst at HSBC Holdings.

“Their budget for various activities, whether it’s engineering, investment, marketing, is often equivalent to the summed budgets of their competitors,” Dineen said in an interview. “That is a formidable competitor.”

Through March, the Mexican unit, called Telcel, had 71 percent of Mexican phone subscribers, while Telefonica, its next-biggest rival, held 21 percent. Telcel’s share of the market was the largest of operators in 50 countries studied by Merrill Lynch in a report released in April.

www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-19/slim-defends-mexico-wireless-empire-as-telefonica-televisa-step-up-fight.html

By Laura Price and Jens Erik Gould

Bloomberg - Mexico will impose import tariffs on some U.S. pork cuts, ketchup, cheeses, sweetcorn and some fruits because of the U.S. government’s failure to restore a program allowing Mexican trucks to operate north of the border, the nation’s official gazette said.

The list includes a tariff of 5 percent on some cuts of pork and as much as 25 percent on fresh white cheese, according to the notice.
Onions, apples, pears, oranges, cherries, soy sauce, mineral water and sunglasses are also on the list.

Mexico will charge the duties on a rotating list of 99 U.S. products valued at about $2.5 billion.

Mexico’s government is waiting for the U.S. to propose a resolution to the standoff, which started when the U.S. Congress ended a pilot program allowing Mexican trucks to deliver goods in the U.S. Mexico responded in March 2009 by putting tariffs of 10 percent to 45 percent on U.S. goods including vegetables, wine, juices, sunglasses and toothpaste.

Now, authorities are imposing a second round or tariffs covering more goods.

www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-18/mexico-puts-tariffs-on-some-u-s-pork-cuts-in-truck-program-retaliation.html

By Cyntia Barrera Diaz

Reuters - Mexico's telecommunications regulator approved a controversial bid by broadcast giant Televisa to enter the mobile phone market on Monday, ratcheting up competition on market leader America Movil.

Cofetel, as the regulator is known, said in a statement it ruled the joint bid by Televisa and partner Nextel was valid despite objections from some politicians who said the bidding process had been rigged to allow Mexico's top broadcaster to present a low-ball bid for wireless spectrum.

Televisa and Nextel raised eyebrows after bidding $14 million for its license, a fraction of the $400 million offered by rivals America Movil and Telefonica for another slice of the mobile spectrum.

Critics said the government backed down in the face of Televisa, which controls about 70 percent of Mexico's broadcast television market.

But the government has stood behind the auction arguing it will promote competition in the mobile phone market where Carlos Slim's America Movil is the leader.

ca.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idCATRE67G03J20100817

El Universal - Mexico's Minister of Finance and Public Credit said the country's economy is expected to have reached a growth rate of as much as 7.0 percent in the second quarter. Still, he stuck to the government's 4.0 to 5.0 percent projection for all of 2010.

Finance Minister Ernesto Cordero, in a Sunday press conference, said he is not ready to raise the government's 2010 growth projection because there still are risks to the global economy that pose a threat to Mexico's recovery.

The jump in the second quarter growth rate was likely caused by the tax reforms that went into effect in January, Cordero said.
Although unpopular, he said, the new taxes have contributed greatly to maintaining financial stability in Mexico.

Other experts attributed the second quarter's robust growth to rises in production, exports, domestic demand and employment.

This, together with external dynamism has led to the favorable evolution of financial variables such as country risk, interest rates, long term and an increase in commercial bank credit to the private sector.

www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/701805.html