A city employee collects trash from a clogged storm drain.
The past week’s intense rainfall in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, has caused more than the usual flooding and transportation problems; it has also swept trash through the city’s streets, blocking storm and sewer drains and exacerbating the problems that come with tropical storms in this region of the country.
According to Mayor Luis Guillermo Benítez Torres, who toured the area after the storm, some of the city’s flooding was specifically due to the large amounts of moving trash and while he confirmed that city workers were committed to clearing the trash and resolving the problem, he called on local citizens to stop throwing trash in the streets.
“So far we have collected around 11 tonnes of trash from all the blocked gutters, and we aren’t even finished counting all the trash yet,” said David Ibarra, the head of municipal public services.
“We need to call on citizens,” Ibarra said, “to stop throwing trash in the street that blocks the drains. For the well-being of everyone and more than anything else to avoid flooding like this.”
Residents also complained that some businesses left large piles of trash on the sidewalk.
Secret trash dumps and areas that accumulate garbage can be found throughout the city. The public services crew pulled plastic containers, plastic bags, food scraps, cartons, branches, and leaves out of local drains, as layers of trash covered the city streets.
Mazatlán has had problems with trash in the past, such as earlier this month when residents complained to the municipal environmental department about bags of trash left outside by local businesses and rental apartments. They protested that the trash was ruining Mazatlan’s historical downtown and making the city’s streets an eyesore. As one of Mexico’s most popular beach destinations, the summer season is especially difficult for the city because of the influx of tourists.
The central bank's headquarters in Mexico City. Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0
The Bank of México (Banxico) has increased its benchmark interest rate by 75 basis points to 8.5%, the highest level since a new monetary policy regime was introduced in 2008.
It was the second consecutive time that the central bank lifted its key rate by 0.75% after the governing board took the same decision in late June. The board, which met Thursday, has now lifted the benchmark rate at 10 consecutive monetary policy meetings.
The latest decision came after the national statistics agency INEGI announced Tuesday that inflation reached 8.15% in July, the highest level in 22 years.
In a statement announcing its rate hike, Banxico said that inflation was rising globally within a context of imbalances between demand and supply and persistent high prices for food and energy.
The impacts of inflation have been felt both in Mexican markets and around the world, as food and energy prices rise.
“Among key global risks are those associated with the pandemic, the persistence of inflationary pressures, the intensification of geopolitical turmoil, and greater adjustments in economic, monetary and financial conditions,” the bank said.
In Mexico, Banxico said that the peso remained stable (one greenback was worth about 19.8 pesos early Friday afternoon) and that recent information indicated that economic growth in the second quarter — 1.9% — was similar to that in the first quarter, signifying a gradual recovery from the pandemic-induced downturn.
“Nevertheless, an environment of uncertainty prevails, while the balance of risks remains biased to the downside,” the central bank said.
“The accumulated inflationary pressures associated with both the pandemic and the military conflict [in Ukraine] continue affecting headline and core inflation, which in July registered annual variations of 8.15% and 7.65%, respectively,” Banxico said.
The bank said that the governing board “evaluated the magnitude and diversity of the shocks that have affected inflation” as well as “increasing challenges for monetary policy stemming from the ongoing tightening of global financial conditions and “the environment of significant uncertainty.”
“… Based on these considerations, … the board decided unanimously to raise the target for the overnight interbank interest rate by 75 basis points to 8.5%. With this action, the monetary policy stance adjusts to the trajectory required for inflation to converge to its 3% target within the forecast horizon,” Banxico said.
The central bank anticipates that inflation will reach 8.5% this quarter before falling to 8.1% in Q4. Further easing is forecast for 2023, with rates of 7.1%, 5%, 3.7% and 3.2% predicted for quarters 1 to 4, respectively. Banxico’s inflation outlook extends to the first two quarters of 2024, during which a rate of 3.1% is forecast.
The bank said it will continue to monitor inflationary pressures as it seeks to set a benchmark rate that will allow inflation to come down to its target “within the time frame in which monetary policy operates.”
The governing board’s next monetary policy meeting is scheduled for September 29.
"El Jefe," seen here in Arizona in 2015, is one of few jaguars known to have crossed the border. University of Arizona / U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
His name is “El Jefe” and he crosses the U.S.-Mexico border at will. Not only that, but his arrival sometimes sparks a celebration — be it in Arizona or in Sonora. Doesn’t matter. People love him on both sides.
His age is believed to be 12 years, maybe older.
And he doesn’t mind being photographed.
“El Jefe” is a jaguar who comes and goes as he pleases, infiltrating a border lined partially by a wall and other infrastructure to stop drug traffickers and migrants. He was first photographed in 2011 by a hunter southeast of Tucson, Arizona, after which he gained celebrity status as the only known U.S. jaguar. A local school named him “El Jefe” (“The Boss”), and he even has his own Wikipedia entry.
Motion sensor cameras captured the same jaguar again in 2012 and 2015 (a jaguar’s spots serve as a unique indicator), and now he’s believed to be one of the oldest jaguars on record along the border area. The average lifespan for such an animal falls between 12 and 15 years.
Conservationists don’t know how many jaguars there are in the Sierra Madre Occidental, which runs through northwestern and western Mexico and along the Gulf of California.
But 176 have been identified over two decades by the Northern Jaguar Project— and only two others besides “El Jefe” are known to have crossed the border.
That’s according to Juan Carlos Bravo of the Wildlands Network which, along with NJP and six other groups, is part of Borderlands Linkages, a binational initiative working for the conservation of this species, the northern jaguar.
This photo of El Jefe was taken in November 2021. He was later identified by his unique pattern of spots. Profauna / Borderlands Linkages Initiative
In November 2021, another group in the coalition, Profauna, took a picture of a jaguar in Sonora that was later confirmed to be “El Jefe.” It was approximately 200 kilometers (120 miles) away from where his photos had previously been taken.
Conservationists reportedly were stunned.
The discovery meant not only that jaguars could still cross the border after the Trump administration’s reinforcement and expansion of the wall, but that jaguars that hadn’t been seen for a while could still be alive.
Northern jaguars were thought to have disappeared from the United States toward the end of the 20th century, having been hunted in the Southwest for rewards offered by the government to promote cattle ranching,
These days, jaguar populations are concentrated on Mexico’s Pacific coast, southeastern Mexico, Central America and central South America. A sighting of jaguars in the U.S. in 1996 prompted studies that found a reproductive point in the center of Sonora (where “El Jefe” was photographed nine months ago).
In recent years, non-governmental organizations on both sides of the border have banded together to track the big cats, create sanctuaries, understand more about them and seek the support of landowners to protect them, Bravo said.
Motion-sensor cameras have been placed in various areas, but this isn’t always easy for conservationists on the Mexican side due to drug cartels.
“There is a presence of armed groups and drug traffickers” who pass through the same isolated areas as the jaguars, Bravo said. “It is important to move carefully [and] work with the people in the communities that tell us where not to go. … All of this [makes it] very, very complicated.”
And then there’s the border wall, along with light towers and roads used by the Border Patrol, all of which are impediments not only for jaguars but also the American antelope, the black bear and the Mexican wolf, Bravo said.
Jaguar, by the way, is a cognate— a word that is the same (or very similar) in two languages. It’s spelled “jaguar” in both idiomas, though the pronunciation in Spanish (ha-gwar) is different than in English (jag-wahr, or sometimes jag-wire).
AICM is currently operating at its saturation point, officials say.
The federal government will spend 600 million pesos (US $30.2 million) to repair Terminal 2 at the Mexico City International Airport (AICM), an amount more than 10 times higher than previously announced.
President López Obrador announced the investment Thursday and also said that flights will be reduced to ease pressure on the airport, which has reached saturation point, according to the Federal Civil Aviation Agency.
The president told his morning press conference that the federal government will fund the Terminal 2 work but it will be managed by the Mexico City government. The Institute of Engineering at the National Autonomous University and other structural engineers have assisted the planning of the project, López Obrador said.
His announcement came after the government said in late July that it would spend 46.5 million pesos to repair structural damage in both AICM terminal buildings.
The president said that Terminal 2 of Mexico City International Airport (AICM) is sinking due to structural damage.
López Obrador said July 25 that Terminal 2 — built during former president Vicente Fox’s 2000-2006 government — is “not very old but has structural damage” and is sinking, a conclusion challenged by the College of Mexican Aeronautics Engineers.
“We’re going to check it and shore it up so that people are protected. … It’s sinking and the land [on which it was built] wasn’t the most suitable. … We have to find a way to shore it up with columns, for safety reasons,” he said.
López Obrador said Thursday that there were in fact two options to deal with the terminal’s problems: “underpin it so that a thorough repair is completed later or a [more immediate] intervention for the medium and long term.”
He said the government chose the second option because it would ensure the safety of people using the terminal. “When they built the terminal they said it would last 50 years but it didn’t hold up because they didn’t do it well,” López Obrador said.
President López Obrador announced the spending increase for the Terminal 2 repairs at his Thursday morning press conference.
He said he asked Mexico City authorities to take charge of the project because the federal government is overwhelmed with infrastructure work.
“We couldn’t turn to the military engineers, who are the best there is in construction,” López Obrador said, noting that they are already building National Guard barracks, government-owned “well-being” banks and part of the Maya Train railroad.
An unnamed government official who spoke with the newspaper El Economista said it was regrettable that the Terminal 2 project wasn’t assigned to the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation, which has employees with expertise in such work.
Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum acknowledged Thursday that her administration will take charge of the project, telling a press conference that the work will take 13 months to complete. She also said that the terminal is sinking and that its foundations need to be reinforced. The repair project will “probably” begin this year, the mayor said.
As for a reduction in flight numbers at AICM, López Obrador said that will occur once the results of a technical analysis become available in November. Deputy Transport Minister Rogelio Jiménez Pons said in May that 25% of flights would be transferred to the new Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) and the Toluca International Airport over the next 12 months in order to ease pressure on AICM.
López Obrador said Thursday that AICM already handles a lot of flights and passengers before noting that AIFA is ready to take on additional traffic. Built by the military, AIFA opened in March, but only a small number of flights depart and land at the airport on a daily basis. It’s one of the pet infrastructure projects of the president, who canceled the previous government’s partially built airport in Texcoco, México state, after a legally questionable referendum held before he took office.
El Economista noted that the government can reduce operations at AICM but can’t force airlines to add flights at AIFA. López Obrador in April extended an invitation to Aeroméxico, Volaris and VivaAerobús to increase their flights to and from the airport, and they have committed to adding operations in the coming months, but AICM looks set to remain their hub in the Mexico City metropolitan area for the foreseeable future.
Meanwhile, AIFA’s director said Monday that daily flights in and out of the airport would increase from 12 to 46 next Monday with connections to La Paz, Baja California Sur; Mexicali, Baja California; and Huatulco and Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca. Copa Airlines will also begin operating from the new airport and Panama.
At least 20 stores were attacked throughout the city on Thursday, resulting in the death of at least two people at an Oxxo convenience store.
At least 10 people were killed in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Thursday during a day of violence that began with a brawl between imprisoned members of rival criminal gangs.
At least two state prison inmates were killed before the violence spilled over into the streets of the northern border city, where eight other people were murdered and businesses and vehicles were set on fire. Reports indicated that 10 to 15 people were injured.
The wave of violence began in the early afternoon when a fight between members of rival criminal factions affiliated with the Sinaloa Cartel broke out in the Cereso No. 3 prison. Some of the feuding prisoners are believed to be members of Los Chapitos – a Sinaloa Cartel cell led by the sons of notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán – while others allegedly belong to a gang called Los Mexicles.
Chihuahua authorities said that two inmates were killed during the confrontation, but the newspaper Reforma reported three deaths and said that two of the victims were members of Los Mexicles. Witnesses cited by El Universal said that some inmates used armas blancas (nonexplosive weapons such as knives) in the melee, while others relied solely on their fists. Four prisoners were injured.
Radio presenter Alan González and three other radio station employees were among those killed. They were shot by an armed group while reporting live on air.
The brawl occurred during visiting time at the prison, meaning that inmates’ family members witnessed the outbreak of violence. One woman indicated that a group of men entered the prison from outside and initiated the fight.
“It appeared that the devil came in,” she said. “… We want the authorities to tell us how it is that there is no security and anyone can enter the prison.”
Authorities said the prison brawl had been brought under control by 4 p.m., at which time a spate of attacks in different parts of Ciudad Juárez was just beginning.
Armed men opened fire near a pizza restaurant in the city’s east side, killing four people and wounding one other, according to municipal police. The victims were radio station employees who were broadcasting live from outside the pizzeria.
Ciudad Juárez vivió la jornada más violenta del año, la cual se inició con una riña en un penal, más tarde hubo quema de comercios y ataques armados; al menos hay nueve muertos. Info: https://t.co/OHrWNxf3Lcpic.twitter.com/yapB7wl5pM
Video footage of the attacks, shared by the newspaper La Jornada. This video includes violent images.
According to El Universal, two women were murdered at an OXXO convenience store in a neighborhood in the border city’s southeast. One of the women was an employee of the store while the other was dropping off a job application.
El Universal said that armed attacks at a gas station and another OXXO store left two other people dead. Reforma reported that arson attacks and/or gun violence occurred at at least 20 stores as well as OXXOs, food businesses and gas stations. Vehicles were torched to create fiery narco-blockades in different parts of the city.
Chihuahua Governor Maru Campos condemned the violence in a Twitter post Thursday night. “I deeply regret the loss of human life in this atrocious event against Ciudad Juárez this afternoon,” she wrote.
“I condemn the violent acts that occurred. … I reiterate my commitment to working to the best of my strengths and capacity to guarantee the well-being of Ciudad Juárez residents.”
Restoration work is under way that the Santa Maria del Agua Mission in the town of Landa de Matamoras, Querétaro. The Franciscan mission was one of a series of five Catholic missions built between 1750 and 1770 as part of a grand plan to evangelize the native peoples of the hard-to-access region.
By the time the missions were built, the Spanish colonizers had had several setbacks with local populations destroying any structures or settlements they managed to establish in the region. Franciscan monk Junípero Serra is generally credited with the idea to build the five consecutive missions even though other monks, including Miguel de la Campa de Landa, were involved in their construction and management.
Serra is also said to have invested himself in the well-being of the local populations, their issues, and their health as a kind of early liberation theologist, but the historical record shows that most of the local communities were never fully subjugated by the colonialists or by the Catholic Church.
The Santa María del Agua Mission consists of a complex of buildings surrounded by an outer wall that encircles an open-air atrium with a raised cross at its center. The church itself, like its fellow missions, is known for its Mexican Baroque style and has an impressive facade that includes images of the angels, cherubs, apostles, and martyrs, as well as St. Michael the Archangel vanquishing the devil.
A front view of the mission under restoration in Landa de Matamoros.
The 7.5-million-peso (US $376,000) government-funded restoration project required a particular amount of care and attention as the collection of missions was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2003. Local officials are hoping that the newly restored mission will draw even more religious tourists to this part of Querétaro state.
The area is also well known for the La Joya de Hielo, an area inside local communal lands that is home to 100-million-year-old marine fossils on public display.
It's not the first time the school has been in the spotlight for abusive treatment of new students.
A Durango teachers college is facing accusations that hazing is still occurring on its grounds four years after a 19-year-old student died due to injuries he sustained during degrading initiation rituals.
The college at the center of the scandal is the J. Guadalupe Aguilera Rural Normal School in the municipality of Canatlán, located north of Durango city.
In August 2018, Ronaldo Mujica Nevárez died of head injuries he sustained during hazing at the school. Now, several new students have reported being forced to participate in hazing rituals at the same college.
One student from the municipality of Guadalupe Victoria reported that his human rights were violated during the school’s recent induction week. During a period of two days, he said he was only allowed to eat once and that older students stripped him in the morning and forced him to dance in the nude. The student’s mother said that her son was also forced to go without sleep for three consecutive nights.
In 2018, 19-year-old Ronaldo Mujica Nevárez died of head injuries after being hazed at the same teachers college.
According to the mayor-elect of Guadalupe Victoria, the young man managed to call his mother and arranged for her to pick him up. “He lied, saying that his grandfather had cancer, so they would allow him to leave the institution. His mom found him dehydrated and low in glucose. She took him to a hospital to be stabilized,” David Ramos Zepeda, a former state deputy, told the newspaper El Sol de Durango.
He asserted that the school hasn’t learned from the recommendations issued after the death of Mujica, who died in a Canatlán hospital.
The father of a new student from Gómez Palacio told El Sol that his son was also a hazing victim. According to a report by that newspaper, the student and six others left the teacher’s college on Monday after being subjected to brutal treatment during their induction. The young men were reportedly stripped of their belongings, verbally abused and forced to carry out strenuous physical work under a blazing sun. More extreme physical activity followed at night before older students sent the newbies to sleep on the floor.
The abusive seniors consumed alcohol and drugs as they subjected the new arrivals to demeaning hazing rites, according to the student from Gómez Palacio.
Despite the testimony of the new students, the director of the school denied that hazing occurs at the college she leads. Academic, sporting and cultural activities are the focus of the school’s induction week, Alma Guadalupe Salazar Castañeda said.
She acknowledged that new students do cleaning and maintenance work at the school and elsewhere in the municipality, but rejected claims that they were mistreated. They carry out such work to strengthen their character and make a contribution to society, Salazar said.
Asked by El Sol about the case involving the Guadalupe Victoria student, the college director asserted it was false that students are deprived of food, explaining that they can access cooked meals in a kitchen area.
In a message directed to parents, Salazar said: “Rest assured that I’m your eyes [in the school] and I’m attentive [to what’s happening]. I’m also a mother, … I invite you [to come to the school] and verify the conditions.”
Miguel Estrada, a state education official with responsibility for Durango’s teacher-training colleges, also asserted that hazing no longer takes place at the school in Canatlán. He bluntly told a press conference that the inappropriate and violent treatment of new students has been eradicated.
However, Estrada later conceded that “we don’t know exactly what happened” during the recent induction week at the college. “We’re waiting for a detailed report from the institution’s director,” he said.
Miguel Ángel Alba Díaz, Bishop of La Paz, Baja California Sur.
The bishop of La Paz, Baja California Sur, has delivered a scathing assessment of Mexico’s political leaders, describing them as ignorant, inefficient, ineffective and inept.
Bishop Miguel Ángel Alba Díaz issued the rebuke during a Mass earlier this week for victims of violence and their families. Baja California Sur, currently governed by Mexico’s ruling Morena party, is now one of Mexico’s safest states, but it was plagued by violent crime as recently as the second half of the last decade.
In a contemptuous homily, Alba charged that the nation’s political leaders are “ignorant, inefficient and ineffective.”
He didn’t name any names, but it was apparent that President López Obrador was one of the targets of his criticism.
“[Mexico’s leaders] are good at talking, … they can have us laughing with our mouths open every day, but they’re inept at governing,” he said.
The bishop attacked political leaders and governments for failures in a range of areas including healthcare, public security, education and the economy. They haven’t ended corruption or inequality, he bemoaned.
“Nothing. [They’re] inept. They knew how to win over the people but they don’t know how to govern them,” Alba said.
The bishop went on to accuse politicians of putting their own interests and those of their political parties first.
The bishop did not name names, but mentioned several states led by Morena politicians like Colima Governor Indira Vizcaíno Silva.
“We see them laughing at all the campaign closing events of all the candidates of their parties in all the states: in Colima, in Nayarit, in Guerrero,” Alba said, mentioning three states currently governed by Morena.
“They’re they are, laughing and laughing with all all the candidates of their parties. … There are no medicines, [there are budget] cuts and republican austerity but there are resources for [political events], for [political leaders] and for all the bootlickers that accompany them,” he said.
“Our country is dripping with blood, enough already,” Alba added. “We’ve gone to the men [in power] asking for justice and peace, asking them to contain the high levels of criminality that exist in our homeland but our authorities haven’t known how to respond.”
Alba advised his congregation to pray for those in power, to ask God to give them the wisdom they currently lack and to purify them of the corruption that has invaded their souls. He suggested that a lot of politicians are in cahoots with organized crime, an accusation that a former Morena lawmaker made against López Obrador earlier this year.
“Perhaps a lot of … [politicians] owe their positions to [criminal] gangs that supported them with money, with resources, with violence. In how many states are narco-elections and narco-governments spoken about? … Let’s pray for our authorities,” Alba said.
The bishop has previously criticized the Baja California Sur government for not doing enough to combat crime in the state, a move that triggered a war of words with Governor Víctor Manuel Castro Cosío.
Alba is far from the first Catholic Church leader to be critical of Morena, the federal government and López Obrador, who openly professes his Christian faith. In 2020, Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez accused the president of leading Mexico into communism, while Cuernavaca Bishop Ramón Castro Castro earlier this year described the government’s non-confrontational “hugs, not bullets” security strategy as “demagoguery and to some extent complicity.”
Artisans display the Xochistlahuaca Barbie and Ken dolls in traditional dress, along with other products.
The world’s most famous toy doll now has her own outfits in the style of the traditional dress of the Amuzgo women of Guerrero.
A group of women from Xochistlahuaca in southeastern Guerrero has long been dedicated to making traditional clothing for men and women that include colorfully embroidered shirts, skirts, and huipiles — a boxy traditional shirt worn by many women throughout the country.
Susana Martínez de Jesús, one of the group’s members, remembers sewing from the time she was a child and had to steal thread from her mother because “thread was expensive and they didn’t let children play with it,” but, she said, it was the only way to start to learn how to sew and embroider.
Martínez de Jesús said that several years ago, the mayor approached the women to make something that could be given to visitors at the local traditional culture fair and only requested that it be beautiful and represent the traditional arts of the town. The women decided to make outfits for the Mattel dolls Barbie and Ken in the local style, with intricately embroidered patterns and designs.
“It was difficult work,” says Martínez de Jesús, “because if making a garment of normal size is difficult, working in miniature is even more difficult, nevertheless, we made them and presented them and the comments from the public were really encouraging, they really liked them.”
The dolls were a huge success and the women have continued making and selling them, hoping that their children will see themselves in their newly dressed dolls and feel proud of their heritage. While Barbie has worn the trappings of hundreds of different careers and personalities, this is quite possibly the first time she will be dressed in traditional, handmade garments from Mexico.
A traditional Mexican panadería. Wikimedia Commons CC BY 2.5
The announcement earlier this week that inflation in Mexico has reached its highest rate in 22 years included some follow-up reporting that it’s costing people more money to buy bolillos, doughnuts and loaves of Bimbo bread.
“First the tacos and now the tortas,” screamed a headline in the newspaper El Heraldo— alluding to a report last week predicting that a kilo of tortillas will cost 30 pesos by the end of the year.
Now comes word from Anpropan, Mexico’s national association of bread suppliers, that prices at panaderías and in the bread aisle at supermarkets will increase 8% over the second half of 2022.
This is due to a sustained rise in the cost of raw materials needed for the production of bread, namely flour, eggs, and gas or electricity to run the oven.
One factor is that international wheat prices have risen due to the war between Russia and Ukraine, since they are two of the world’s largest producers, noted Iñaki Apaolaza, a member of the Anpropan board. Another factor is that Mexico’s bakery industry gets 70% of the wheat it uses from the United States, El Heraldo reported.
Last month, Grupo Bimbo announced it would raise the prices of its products — including Tía Rosa, Milpa Real, Saníssimo and Mexican-produced Wonder bread — starting on July 18. And that was on top of roughly 10-peso increases that already occurred in 2021, as reported in the newspaper El Financiero.
An informal Mexico News Daily survey of prices on Thursday at Walmart Express, Soriana and Chedraui showed regular-sized Bimbo loaves (610-680 grams) at 42 to 43.60 pesos for pan blanco, 48.50 to 56 pesos for pan integral and 52 to 61 pesos for Cero Cero (zero added fat and sugar). These prices were found online and might include built-in delivery costs.
A survey by El Heraldo that included a regular panadería and a Walmart panadería showed prices, on average, of 2 pesos for a bolillo, 9.5 pesos for a croissant, 10 pesos for a biscuit and 14.50 pesos for a chocolate doughnut, but did note that a chocolate doughnut can reach as much as 20 pesos.
It’s not just small businesses feeling the pinch: Grupo Bimbo bread products will also see price increases.
According to Anpropan, Mexicans annually consume 36 kilos (79 lbs.) of bread per capita, which is nearly three times the Canadian average of 29.8 lbs. per year and more than twice the U.S. average of 37.4 lbs. per year, based on data from 2016 and 2017, respectively.
Mexican bread baker Ana Laura told El Heraldo that she has been forced to raise the prices on her small products by one or two pesos each, especially on items that require sugar.
“Sugar, eggs and milk, the basics for making biscuits, have risen in price,” she said. “We would like to avoid raising the prices, but we would lose profits. We have discussed the increases with customers, telling them it’s because we do not want to lower quality.”
Earlier this week, it was announced that general inflation in Mexico was at 8.15% in July, its highest since the 9.12% rate in July 2000. Last year’s annual rate was 5.81%, according to the National Consumer Price Index, and this year’s annual rate by year’s end “could reach 8.7%,” according to Gabriela Siller, director of economic analysis at Banco Base.
While the administration of President López Obrador has announced measures to control inflation and hold down food prices, the rising costs of basic grocery items are putting a pinch on many. The newspaper El País reported the following price increases from June to July: the cost of eggs went up 8.3%, oranges 15.5%, potatoes 12% and green tomatoes 20.4%.
In addition, El Heraldo reported finding tortillas for 27 pesos per kilo in Sonora. Before the pandemic hit in 2020, the average cost nationwide was about 13 to 14 pesos per kilo, and at this time last year, it was just starting to climb over 20 pesos. “Inflation has hit the Mexican economy hard and experts point out that the worst will come at the end of August and the entire month of September,” the newspaper wrote.
