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Tax incentives are being offered to elevate Mexico to "the capital of Latin America cinema"

By John Hecht
The Hollywood Reporter

Mexico has launched a $20-million tax incentive program in an ambitious move to draw large-scale film and audiovisual productions from Hollywood.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon made the announcement Tuesday at Baja Studios in Baja California, where James Cameron's "Titanic" and Peter Weir's "Master and Commander: Far Side of the World" were shot in the studio's colossal tanks.

The president said the program intends to elevate Mexico as "the capital of Latin American cinema."

Managed by state-run film financing agency Imcine and Mexican trade and investment body ProMexico, the upstart program offers tax rebates of 7.5 percent on film productions that exceed the amount of 70 million pesos ($5.5 million).
www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i5c964e4d188f5581222d37f1411e9cb7

Top Stories for March 11, 2010

Mexican mogul Carlos Slim overtakes Gates, Buffet to become Forbes' richest man in the world

By Chris Dolmetsch and Crayton Harrison
Bloomberg

Mexico’s Carlos Slim beat Bill Gates and Warren Buffett for the top spot on Forbes magazine’s annual list of billionaires, becoming the first person from outside the United States to lead the rankings in 16 years.

The net worth of Slim, 70, who built a telecommunications empire after buying Mexico’s state-run phone monopoly two decades ago, rose $18.5 billion to $53.5 billion.

Gates, 54, chairman of Microsoft Corp., fell to second as his net worth increased $13 billion to $53 billion. Buffett, 79, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., was third with $47 billion, a rise of $10 billion.

Slim is the first person other than Gates, last year’s richest person, or Buffett to top the list since 1994, which was also the last time a billionaire from outside the U.S. led the ranking: Japanese real estate tycoon Yoshiaki Tsutsumi.

“We’ve been watching Slim for a while and kind of wondered when the stars would align and he would take over,” Forbes senior editor Luisa Kroll said in an interview today.

More than 80 percent of Slim’s holdings are held in five public stocks, she said. “His net worth really reflects how well those stocks are doing. Everything that he owns has done very, very well this year.”

Slim’s holdings in Mexico extend from retail, with the Sanborns department store chain, through banking and construction. Through his holding companies and investment vehicles, he holds stakes in U.S. companies including the New York Times Co., Saks Inc. and Bronco Drilling Co.

“His management of America Movil, which I believe is the principal reason for his wealth, has been exceptional,” said Jose Miguel Garaicochea at Banco Santander. “And when he has gone outside of Mexico, he has also done very well.”

www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-10/slim-overtakes-gates-buffett-to-become-forbes-richest-person.html

CNNExpansión.com - Vehicle sales during February dropped by 3.3 percent compared to the same month last year, to 59.516 units. Vehicle production in Mexico, however, rose 55.6 percent, while exports jumped 96.8 percent on an annual rate./p...

CNNExpansión.com - Gloria Guevara Manzo takes over as the new Secretary of Tourism with the main challenge to revive the industry after the negative effects of economic recession and the A/H1N1 influenza outbrake that caused a 15.1 percent decline in foreign exchange earnings last year./p...

Sentido Comun - Grupo Aeroportuario del Centro Norte, OMA, reported a 12.5 percent drop in passenger traffic at its 13 terminals during the month of February compared with the same month in 2009. The fall is the 20th consecutive fall for the airport operator.

www.sentidocomun.com.mx/breves.phtml

Maquila Portal - Prime Wheel, a Japanese manufacturer of custom automotive wheels, plans to start operations in Tijuana in two months, generating 1,000 jobs. Prime Wheel, founded in 1989, supplies wheels to companies all over the world.

www.maquilaportal.com/cgi-bin/public/board.pl

Sentido Comun - Macquarie Infrastructure Fund Mexico, recently established by the Australian investment bank, announced it is participating as a member of a consortium that seeks to win the tender to build and operate several roads and bridges in the northeast.

www.sentidocomun.com.mx/breves.phtml

Sentido Comun - Cell phone users have registered more than 37.4 million phone numbers on the National Register of Mobile Phone Members before the April 10 deadline. Mexico has about 80 million mobile phone users.

www.sentidocomun.com.mx/breves.phtml

The Hill - Export of U.S. frozen french fries and other frozen potato products to Mexico dropped in value by 50 percent from April to December 2009 after Mexico imposed a 20 percent tariff on frozen potatoes and other U.S. exports. Almost all of the lost business has moved to Canada./p...

Dow Jones - Mexico's stocks closed nearly unchanged in a volatile session Tuesday, as declines in individual shares offset gains in a benchmark exchange traded fund. The benchmark IPC index dipped 6.1 points to close at 32514.17. The peso extended gains against the U.S. dollar, closing at 12.6305./p...

Dow Jones - Mexican wireless operator and stock market bellwether America Movil said Tuesday it proposes paying dividends equivalent to 32 peso centavos a share. The proposal will be submitted to a shareholder meeting in April, along with a plan to set aside 50 billion pesos ($3.96 billion) for share buybacks./p...

San Antonio Express-News - Citing gunbattles, grenade attacks and "checkpoints" operated by Mexican drug cartels, the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey is warning U.S. residents to avoid travel on highways between Monterrey and Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo on the Texas border./p...

El Semanario - - Fifty-seven percent of senior company executives in Mexico don't expect the economy to recover from 2009's severe recession until 2011, despite current signs of a recovery in the country.

www.elsemanario.com.mx/news/news_display.php

El Semanario - Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), who claimed he was elected in the last presidential race and set up a parallel government, causing a rift within the PRD, said in a visit to Nuevo Leon that he will again seek the presidency through a "progressive alliance."/p...

CNNMéxico - Mexico's consumer prices rose 0.58 percent in February, higher than was expected, because of a rebound in prices of some vegetables and services, the Bank of Mexico said Tuesday. Core inflation rose was 0.4 percent, more in line with expectations, according to the bank./p...

CNNMéxico - Senate PRD President Carlos Navarrete defended the electoral alliances the PRD formed with the PAN to contest governorships of at least five states in 2010 and revealed that his party is "carefully studying" the possibility of another coalition to beat the PRI in 2011 in the state of Mexico./p...

Sentido Comun - Grupo Lar, one of the largest real estate groups in Spain, said it plans to invest 476 million pesos ($37.62 million) this year in the  Performa y Polaréa real estate projects in Mexico City and the Horizontes Ordaz project in Monterrey,...

Sentido Comun - Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico said in a press release that the number of passengers who visited their air terminals fell 4.5 percent -- 6 percent in domestic passengers and 2.4 percent in international passengers.

www.sentidocomun.com.mx/breves.phtml

Sentido Comun - International reserves last week reached a new record of $94.54 billion after rising by $76 million over the previous week, the Bank of Mexico said Tuesday in a press release.

www.sentidocomun.com.mx/breves.phtml

Sentido Comun - The sale, production and export of buses and trucks increased in February for the second consecutive month. Last month, truck sales rose 12.8 percent over the same month last year, its second consecutive increase and the highest since July 2008.

www.sentidocomun.com.mx/breves.phtml

Kansas City Star - Kansas City Southern has bought the Puerta Mexico rail-truck facility in Toluca in the state of Mexico. Later this month, the railway plans to add direct train service from Puerta Mexico to Lazaro Cardenass, a port on Mexico’s west coast./p...

Reuters - San Francisco-based AMB Property Corp., which invests in distribution hubs, expects to soon offer a new commercial real state fund in Mexico that aims to draw investment from the nation's 14 private pension funds, which control $85 billion.

www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0813726020100308

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