Tijuana job fair brings migrants, prospective employers together

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November 21, 2018

Central American migrants complete documents at Tijuana job fair. — Central American migrants complete documents at job fair.

The United States is just a stone’s throw away but for thousands of Central American migrants currently in Tijuana, the opportunity to pursue the American dream remains a distant and uncertain goal.

But another option has surfaced, giving them an opportunity to pursue a Mexican dream instead, even if it’s only temporary.

The National Employment Service (SNE), working in conjunction with local companies, has set up a job fair near the Tijuana sports complex where thousands of Central American migrants, who began arriving in the city last week, are being temporarily housed.

Nayla Rangel, chief coordinator of the month-long fair, told the news agency AFP that the fact that the members of the first migrant caravan traveled around 4,400 kilometers to reach Mexico’s northern border from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, showed they are both resilient and determined – qualities that are very attractive to employers.

“They’re very strong people, [they could be] a very valuable workforce for our industry,” she said.

In addition to company representatives, who have set up stalls to interview migrants who are interested in the positions on offer, immigration authorities including the Mexican Refugee Commission are attending the fair to help migrants regularize their immigration status and ensure they can access social security benefits.

“What they’re seeking to do is give them a humanitarian visa so that while their immigration status [in the United States] is being determined they have a work permit,” Rangel said.

Salvador Díaz, president of a local industry association, said that “between 7,000 and 10,000 jobs” are on offer at the migrant job fair including positions in factories and other sectors such as hospitality.

Everyone wins, he pointed out, “migrants get a legal job and business owners [get] tax-deductible labor.”

Wilmar Correa, a 27-year-old Honduran, is one of hundreds of migrants who have attended the fair.

He told AFP that he had studied to become a teacher back home but was unable to get a job due to lack of opportunities.

That, coupled with violence, forced him to leave Honduras. Correa held a sign announcing that he was looking for work as a laborer but said he was prepared to do any type of job.

Another Honduran migrant, 20-year-old César Elvir, said he already passed the first round of interviews for a job as a painter in a factory and was hopeful that he would get a call offering him the position. It comes with a weekly salary of 1,800 pesos (just under US $90).

“It looks good,” said Elvir, who traveled to the border with his wife and two young children.

“My actual goal is not Tijuana but while I wait for other opportunities I have to wait here a while,” he added.

Karla Vallecío, a 34-year-old Honduran woman, was also optimistic that she would find employment as a result of attending the fair.

In Honduras, “I looked after babies, cleaned houses, took in people’s washing, whatever came up,” she said.

“If I get a job the first thing I will do is find a room to stay here in Tijuana. The legal process to request asylum in the United States is slower and more trying than I thought. [Relatives in the United States] have told me to wait for the waters to calm, for all this commotion to pass . . .” Vallecío added.

Díaz, of the local industry association, said the current situation in Tijuana is similar to that of two years ago when thousands of migrants from Haiti arrived.

“The case of Haitians was very positive. There are 2,500 working [legally] now,” he said.

“The most important thing is that they integrated into society well, we haven’t had any problems with them. We want to achieve the same thing with the Central Americans,” Díaz added.

While a wave of anti-migrant sentiment has broken out among some Tijuana residents who claim that there are criminals among the caravan members, the business leader said the majority of migrants who traveled to the border came with their families and good intentions.

“They tell us that they can help us identify these people [the criminals] and turn them into authorities so that they are returned to their country [of origin],” Díaz said.

Source: AFP (sp)

Although work has begun, future of new refinery will be decided this weekend

By

Tony Richards

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November 21, 2018

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The new energy secretary: if the people don't want a refinery, there won't be one.

The new oil refinery in Tabasco is not a done deal because the new government will accept the results of this weekend’s public consultation on the project, according to incoming energy secretary Rocío Nahle.

The consultation process has already killed the multi-billion-peso Mexico City airport, and it might do the same for the Dos Bocas refinery, although little money has been invested in it so far.

Nahle said today that the results of the consultation this weekend will dictate the refinery’s future.

“If the people say no, well, we will respect what the people say.”

She said a new refinery is necessary but a vote against it would mean investing in and reconfiguring the existing six refineries but conceded that investments in recent years have not succeeded in boosting production.

Work has already begun to prepare the refinery site, triggering a complaint by an environmental group that claims the project has neither environmental permits nor authorization for a land-use change.

Meanwhile, the same pubic consultation will also ask citizens if they support the Maya train. Planning for that project is already under way and its inauguration has been scheduled for next month.

Today the new administration said in a statement that the first tenders would be announced in early December.

It was not specified what would happen in the event that the people say no.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Mexico City’s new mayor to allocate 10 billion pesos to transportation

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MND Staff

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November 21, 2018

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bicycle — New Mexico City mayor wants more of these on city streets.

Mexico City’s new government will invest 10.2 billion pesos (US $504.5 million) next year to improve and expand public transportation, the mayor-elect announced yesterday.

Claudia Sheinbaum, who takes office on December 5, said that almost half that amount – 4.8 billion pesos (US $237.5 million) – will be used for the maintenance of trains, tracks and stations in the capital’s large subway system, the Metro.

The city’s RTP bus system will be allocated 600 million pesos (US $29.7 million) to buy new buses and upgrade those it already has while the STE system will receive 500 million pesos to complete maintenance work on the light rail tracks it operates in the south of the city and to buy new trolley buses.

The Metrobús system, which this year began operating London-style red double-decker buses on one if its seven lines, is set to get 1 billion pesos to build two additional lines.

Sheinbaum also said that 3 billion pesos will be allocated to build two new cable car transport systems, one in the north of the city between Cuautepec and the Indios Verdes subway station and another in the eastern borough of Iztapalapa between the neighborhood of Santa Marta and the Constitución de 1917 subway station.

According to the incoming government’s strategic transportation plan, the objective is to “increase accessibility for citizens, reduce travel times [and] improve traveling conditions.”

The incoming mayor, who will govern for president-elect López Obrador’s leftist Morena party, explained that a single card would be introduced for the entire Mexico City public transit network and pledged that there would be no increase in fares.

Accompanied by future transportation secretary Andrés Lajous, Sheinbaum said the new government will also seek to encourage residents to travel more on bicycles and on foot.

Around 100 million pesos is expected to be spent on building new bike lanes and massive bicycle parking stations, integrating the ecobici bike-sharing program into the city’s transportation department and building new pedestrian walkways at subway stations.

In addition, Sheinbaum stressed that her government would eliminate corruption in the city government’s transportation bureaucracy.

“We can’t think about improving the [transportation] system if corruption isn’t eradicated. Bribery is going to end, paying coyotes [fixers] for [vehicle] inspections, to get [public transportation] circulation permission or a license, everything associated with kickbacks [will end]. Transportation operators having to pay fees to high-ranking officials to be able to work, that’s [also] going to end,” she said.

Sheinbaum, an electrical engineer by profession, will become Mexico City’s first popularly elected female mayor.

She previously served as chief of the Mexico City borough of Tlalpan and as secretary of the environment during López Obrador’s administration of the capital between 2000 and 2005.

Source: Milenio (sp), Animal Político (sp)

Bajío states join forces to create manufacturing region

By

MND Staff

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November 21, 2018

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A factory in Mexico's industrial powerhouse region, the Bajío.

Four states have joined forces to create a new manufacturing region to be known as the Central Bajío Corridor.

Óscar Vega Pérez, who as president of the Regional Development Association of Central Mexico will lead the project, said the governors of Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Querétaro and San Luis Potosí have agreed to work together to make the region – the first of its kind in Mexico – a reality.

“For us it’s very good news that the governors are organizing themselves, that they’ve found the will to work together to develop programs and coordinate around common objectives,” he said.

The four governors said earlier this month that the aim of the project was to create a new manufacturing region, where the states’ production and logistics capacities are combined.

It is also expected that the initiative will boost investment, social development and employment in the common region and increase the states’ export output.

In order to create the region, the governors agreed to set a work agenda aimed at developing infrastructure, promoting investment and linking supply chains and logistics.

Vega said the manufacturing and logistics industries as well as small and medium-sized businesses will be crucial to the success of the initiative.

Both government and the private sector will contribute to the new region’s development.

The Central Bajío Corridor Council is currently working on the project with a range of private and public organizations including the Inter-American Development Bank and the National Autonomous University (UNAM).

Source: El Economista (sp)

Airport trust investors who put up US $1.6 billion to consider their legal options

By

MND Staff

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November 21, 2018

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mexico city airport — Sorry, all flights have been cancelled.

Investors who purchased securities designed to partially fund the new Mexico City International Airport (NAIM) will meet next week to discuss their legal options in light of the incoming government’s decision to cancel the project.

A notification document issued via the Mexican Stock Exchange (BMV) said that Mexican and foreign holders of Fibra E shares will gather on November 29 to assess the situation.

President-elect López Obrador announced on October 29 that the partially-built project would be halted after 70% of people who voted in a four-day public consultation favored converting a México state air force base and upgrading the existing airport and that in Toluca over continuing the new airport.

The trust that manages the Fibra E shares is administered by the Mexico City Airport Group (GACM).

Article 8 of the BMV notification document proposes that the security holders vote to appoint an investment advisor to conduct an “analysis and diagnosis of the financial situation stemming from the possible termination of NAIM construction.”

Article 9 proposes the appointment of a legal advisor to analyze “the inherent risks and consequences” of the project’s cancellation.

It also recommends that security holders consider what legal action they might pursue against the incoming government’s decision.

As of September 30, just over 32.1 billion pesos (US $1.6 billion) had been invested in the Fibra E trust but it is not clear what those investors might lose. The initial prospectus said that in the event of a cancellation the holders would receive revenue from the existing airport.

BMV director José Oriol said that 45% of bonds in the trust are held by four pension funds — Inbursa, PensionIssste, Profutura and Banorte Siglo XXI.

The trust contract anticipates a variety of ways in which it could be terminated, but it doesn’t consider that termination could be required due to an external decision.

In other words, it didn’t foresee the possibility that the airport project could be cancelled as the result of a public vote.

In fact, referendums are not described in Mexico’s constitution and the consultation held last month was unprecedented.

After meeting with contractors earlier this month, López Obrador said the companies that have been building the airport wouldn’t take legal action over the decision to cancel the project, but judging by the proposals contained in the BMV document, the new government won’t completely avoid a legal battle on the issue.

Alfonso Romo, the future president’s chief of staff, admitted last week that confidence in the incoming government had diminished as a result of the airport consultation.

The cancellation decision was slammed by prominent private sector leaders and the catalyst for a large protest in Mexico City.

“We got the process wrong. I say that for my part,” Romo said at a meeting with Mexico City’s Jewish community.

“. . . The result [caused] a considerable loss of confidence, more than we could imagine.”

Source: Milenio (sp), Reforma (sp), Bloomberg (en)

30 Cancún shoppers take home 9-peso TVs after sticker-price error

By

César Hernández

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November 21, 2018

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Successful Buen Fin bargain-hunters in Cancún.

Thirty shoppers in Cancún got an extra-special deal while shopping on the weekend during Mexico’s equivalent to Black Friday, a four-day shopping spree called Buen Fin. They bought plasma-screen televisions for just nine pesos.

The shoppers were at Telebodega on Sunday when they noticed that the price on a 55-inch flat-screen TV was only 8.99 pesos, or less than US 50 cents, and seized the opportunity.

The devices’ actual price was 1,000 times more — 8,999 pesos (US $445) — but a store employee entered a decimal point where there should have been a comma.

The sharp-eyed buyers did not budge even after the store manager tried to explain the mistake. Instead, they called Profeco, the federal consumer protection agency.

Its representatives acknowledged that the label on the TVs was incorrect, but insisted that the price displayed must be honored by the seller. Otherwise, Telebodega would be fined between 3,000 and 2 million pesos.

After a four-hour negotiation, the buyers went home with their 8.99-peso television sets, after settling for a smaller model, said a Profeco representative.

But things didn’t end so well for the employee who made the mistake.

He will have to pay over 230,000 pesos for it, that being the difference between the combined actual price of the sets and what the consumers paid for them.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Opposition halts work on section of Veracruz-Hidalgo pipeline project

By

César Hernández

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November 21, 2018

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Workers at a TransCanada pipeline project.

A Canadian energy company has suspended construction of the Tuxpan-Tula pipeline in Hidalgo due to continued problems with opposition along the route.

Announced in 2015, the pipeline is intended to transport Texas natural gas from Veracruz to Hidalgo and supply the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) and industrial customers in central and western Mexico.

But opposition to the project, which is being built by TransCanada Corp., has come from indigenous communities.

The project came to a halt early this year when the Puebla municipalities of Pahuatlán and Tlacuilotepec obtained an amparo, or injunction, against it.

That section of the pipeline is on standby while the federal Energy Secretariat conducts consultations with the indigenous communities.

TransCanada said that work on the Hidalgo section of the pipeline has now been suspended because the demands by local social organizations were “irrational” and bordered on “extortion.”

A lawyer for the CFE blamed the halt on local conflicts and opportunistic lawyers.

“I don’t feel good saying it, but lawyers play a very bad role here,” said Eugenio Herrera-Terrazas last week in San Antonio, Texas, at a natural gas forum. He likened them to “ambulance chasers,” explaining that they had been seen going to the towns through which the pipeline passes looking for “a slice of the pie.”

He said three other pipeline projects are facing the same problems.

One of those is another TransCanada project — the Tula-Villa de Reyes pipeline.

Issues cited by TransCanada with regard to the Hidalgo pipeline also included undefined jurisdictional limits between municipalities, and their modifications to laws that increased the costs of obtaining authorizations.

“These situations paralyze the issuance of permits in accordance to law, and threaten the project’s viability due to the financial burden they represent,” the company said.

It estimates that the Tuxpan-Tula pipeline — with the exception of the segment in Hidalgo — will be completed in the second half of 2020. The entire project was supposed to be completed by then.

Source: El Financiero (sp), Natural Gas Intel (en)

AMLO will go after ex-presidents for corruption—if the public demands it

By

César Hernández

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November 21, 2018

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Former president Salinas: he would be the first to face corruption charges, says AMLO.

Justice for corrupt ex-presidents will depend on what the people want, says president-elect López Obrador, but his own personal opinion is to let bygones be bygones.

During an interview yesterday López asserted that if the public demands it, former presidents will be brought to justice, “starting with Carlos Salinas de Gortari,” who was president from 1988 to 1994.

López also recalled that he had previously filed formal complaints with the federal Attorney General’s office against former presidents Salinas, Ernesto Zedillo, Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón and current president Enrique Peña Nieto. He filed the complaints at different times, he said, accusing them of treason and corruption. “I have never kept quiet.”

López Obrador insisted he is a “democrat” and that “the people should decide.” But he also said it would be better “to forget that horrible history. We must understand that the most important thing is to truly put an end to corruption and start a new phase.”

For the president-elect this means moving forward with zero impunity and no pardons, not even for the president. “If I betray the people, I should be judged.”

He said corruption investigations will continue, but those implicated could well be pardoned.

“. . . I do not believe it is good for the country to be bogged down in prosecuting allegedly corrupt people.”

If the country were to go down that road, he continued, justice should go after “those at the very top and from very long ago . . . because this crisis did not start last month.”

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Economic outlook not as rosy as it was a month ago as confidence eroded

By

MND Staff

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November 21, 2018

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López Obrador: recent developments have triggered a gloomier economic outlook. — López Obrador: recent developments have triggered a gloomier outlook.

In the space of a single month the outlook for the Mexican economy in 2019 in terms of the value of the peso, growth, inflation and interest rates has deteriorated significantly.

And some economists believe that the forecast could become even gloomier in the months to come and that president-elect López Obrador, who takes office in 10 days, is partially to blame.

A month ago, the Citibanamex financial outlook survey, which canvasses the opinions of more than 20 private sector economists, predicted an exchange rate of 18.85 pesos to the US dollar at the end of 2019.

But the same survey conducted this month revealed a consensus that one greenback would buy 20 pesos at the end of next year, a prediction that is steady with the current exchange rate.

López Obrador’s announcement late last month that the new Mexico City International Airport project will be cancelled generated concern among investors that wasn’t based solely on the potential financial impact of the decision but also the manner in which it was made.

Financial institutions and risk analysts have warned that if the new government continues to make important decisions via public consultation, a loss of confidence in Mexico, from both domestic and international investors, will follow.

“The deterioration of economic expectations is happening quickly and I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next surveys they deteriorate even more, even if nothing [negative] happens,” said Ernesto O’Farrill, president of brokerage firm Bursamétrica.

“There are several factors that are being brought on [within Mexico] as well as an international environment that is further clouding the internal factors that are eroding confidence,” he added.

Despite scathing criticism from the private sector and a large protest in Mexico City over the airport cancellation and the public consultation that preceded it, López Obrador was not deterred from announcing another referendum that will be held this weekend to seek opinion on the Maya Train and a new oil refinery as well as a range of social programs.

The president-elect has said that his government will target 4% annual economic growth and that the infrastructure projects he has proposed will help to achieve it.

But López Obrador’s growth goal, at least for next year, appears fanciful.

Bursamétrica economists are forecasting GDP growth of just 1.5% in 2019, half a percentage point less than what they were predicting last month.

Analysts consulted by Citibanamex also cut their growth projections between October and this month, albeit by a more modest margin from 2.1% to 1.9%.

O’Farrill believes that growth estimates could even drop into negative territory at some point after López Obrador becomes president.

“With very poor communication from the transition team and poor signals from the new Congress, confidence has diminished more than normal. What’s normal is for a six-year presidential term to begin with a lot of expectations, with prospects for investment but what’s happening now is the opposite,” he said.

Gabriela Siller, a director at Banco Base, said the reduction in the value of the peso over the past five weeks has placed greater pressure on inflation, which in turn led the Bank of México to raise its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to a nearly 10-year-high of 8%.

Higher interest rates, she said, act as a disincentive to consumption and investment, which will translate into lower economic growth.

Citibanamex is currently predicting an inflation rate of 3.9% in 2019 compared to a 3.7% rate it forecast last month.

Bursamétrica, Scotiabank and Pro Asset Management are anticipating even worse inflation figures next year, with forecasts of 5%, 4.34% and 4.2% respectively.

Analysts from the same institutions said they don’t foresee another interest rate hike this year or next, meaning that they expect rates to remain steady at 8%. However, that figure is 0.75% higher than their prediction last month for the close of 2019.

In contrast, analysts consulted by the news agency Bloomberg last week said there is a 100% probability that the central bank will increase rates again next month.

The Bank of México itself said in a statement that it would take any necessary action, including holding or hiking rates, to get inflation on track to achieve its 3% goal.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Taxi, semi-trailer collide on Oaxaca highway, killing 5

By

Tony Richards

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November 21, 2018

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The taxi and semi in yesterday's accident in Oaxaca.

Five people were killed when a taxi/colectivo and a semi-trailer collided on a highway in Oaxaca yesterday.

Three people were injured in the accident, which occurred on the Oaxaca-Puerto Escondido highway near the community of Ciénega Zimatlán.

According to one report, the driver of the semi lost control of the vehicle and crossed into the oncoming lane, striking the taxi. Another report blamed the taxi for being in the wrong lane on a curve on the winding, mountain highway.

The taxi driver was killed as were some of his passengers, who were flung from the vehicle on impact. The vehicle was completely destroyed.

The semi-trailer was carrying pilgrims to the popular shrine of the Virgin of Juquila. The driver fled the scene immediately after the crash, authorities said.

Source: NVI Noticias (sp), El Imparcial (sp)