Economy Minister Clouthier and US Trade Representative Tai.
The United States government has warned that Mexico’s energy sector policies place US $10 billion in U.S. investments at risk.
United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai cited the 11-digit figure in a letter to Economy Minister Tatiana Clouthier last Thursday.
According to the newspaper Reforma, which saw the private letter, Tai said the Electricity Industry Law – which gives power generated by the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) priority on the national grid over that produced by private and renewable energy companies – poses a great risk to United States energy projects in Mexico.
Tai lamented that Mexico’s energy policies haven’t changed despite the U.S. government’s efforts to collaborate constructively with its Mexican counterpart.
The letter Clouthier received from the US Trade Representative reflected thinning patience with Mexico’s desire to overhaul its energy market.
Several U.S. officials, including Tai, have raised concerns about the federal government’s energy policies and plans, including a constitutional bill that would guarantee 54% of the electricity market to the CFE.
Ambassador Ken Salazar acknowledged last month that United States energy companies are having problems securing the permits they need to operate without encumbrance in Mexico, while U.S.-owned fuel storage terminals have been shut down by authorities for allegedly unclear reasons.
Despite U.S. concerns, President López Obrador said Friday that he wouldn’t make any changes to his proposed electricity reform, and he is also determined to strengthen the role state oil company Pemex plays in the energy sector.
In her letter to Clouthier, Tai contended that United States companies are being treated arbitrarily in Mexico. Renewable energy sector investments are at greater risk now than at any previous time, the trade representative said.
Reforma noted that the $10 billion figure cited by Tai is more than triple the value of Mexican avocado exports to the United States in 2021, which totaled $2.8 billion.
Tai told Clouthier that she would consider all available options under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement to challenge energy sector policies that the U.S. believes violate the three-way free trade pact.
Mexico’s Supreme Court began reviewing the Electricity Industry Law’s constitutionality on Tuesday. Fernando Gutiérrez Ortega/Shutterstock
She urged the Mexican government to suspend laws and policies about which the United States has raised concerns, and protect the rights of U.S. investors.
Meanwhile, López Obrador claimed Tuesday that some opposition lawmakers would support his constitutional bill, which would also get rid of two independent energy sector regulators.
He said he had information that some legislators with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and even a National Action Party (PAN) lawmaker would “rebel” and support his reform.
“I call for that, for them to rebel so that they are authentic representatives of the people and not employees of vested interest groups,” López Obrador said.
“They shouldn’t be traitors to the homeland, they should rebel, have the arrogance to feel free,” he said.
“… I also call on people to be alert, because debates [on the electricity reform] are going to start in the Chamber of Deputies … and we have to see who defends [private and foreign] companies,” rather than the state, López Obrador said.
“Because this has happened in other times. The PRI and the PAN came to an agreement when they still had the people fooled that they were different, and they voted for [the contingencies fund] Fobproa to convert private debt into public debt, and that enormous debt still exists,” he said.
'Don't turn your vacation into a permanent [jail] stay,' warns the poster at the Cancún airport.
A campaign has been launched in Quintana Roo to reduce drug use in tourist destinations famous for their party cultures, in which visitors will have to sign a letter acknowledging their understanding of drug laws.
The Sé Parte de la Solución (Be Part of the Solution) campaign is being promoted to tourists in airports, marine terminals and hotels in an effort to combat the drug trade.
Government spokesperson Fernando Mora Guillén said tourists will have to sign a letter of commitment at their hotels. “It’s expected that hotels in Cancún, the Riviera Maya and other destinations will submit a letter of commitment in which guests state that they know possessing and trafficking drugs is a crime,” he said.
Mora added that the strategy of showing powerful images on posters was recommended by U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar.
The campaign will run indefinitely and be communicated in English, Spanish, French and German.
Governor Carlos Joaquín said that the campaign was about protecting tourists. “Motivated by the next tourist high season, we are promoting the campaign in collaboration with business people to warn tourists about the risks and consequences of consuming drugs during their stay in Quintana Roo,” he said.
Some 12 million tourists visit Quintana Roo every year, but violence threatens the reputation of the state long seen as a safe destination. Agents from the Quintana Roo Attorney General’s Office have arrested six people for the murder of four men in Playa del Carmen. Those men are also being investigated for kidnapping and murder of 13 people.
In October, gunfire left two tourists dead in Tulum and another incident saw two drug dealers shot and killed on a beach in Puerto Morelos in November.
In March, an English businessman was shot dead in front of his 14-year-old daughter in Playa del Carmen.
A range of international criminal groups are known to be present in the state and the increase in violence triggered the deployment in December of a new tourism security battalion of the National Guard.
The U.S. government launched an FBI investigation into criminal activity in Quintana Roo in February.
The law is on Tuesday's agenda at the Supreme Court.
An umbrella group of environmental organizations announced Monday that it would make a submission to the Supreme Court (SCJN) to argue against the Electricity Industry Law (LIE), which was approved by Congress last year.
The SCJN will consider the constitutionality of the law on Tuesday.
The LIE gives power generated by the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission priority on the national grid over that produced by private and renewable energy companies.
The law took effect on March 10, 2021, but a federal judge promptly ordered its suspension, ruling that it could harm free competition and cause irreparable damage to the environment because it favors traditional energy sources over renewable ones. The decision came in response to suspension requests filed by renewable energy companies.
A day before the SCJN commences its consideration of the constitutionality of the LIE, a collective of 38 environmental organizations led by Nuestro Futuro (Our Future) said it would file an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief against the law.
Nora Cabrera Velasco, director of Nuestro Futuro – an organization made up of young environmentalists, said the proposal by Justice Loretta Ortiz Ahlf that the LIE be declared constitutional doesn’t take the law’s environmental shortcomings into account.
Ortiz is a former federal deputy for the ruling Morena party and its ally the Labor Party, a political history that opposition lawmakers say affects her capacity to rule on the constitutionality of the LIE in an impartial way.
Cabrera said the law the justice wants to validate lacks provisions to tackle climate change. The amicus curiae brief “is a very important document because it’s signed by a lot of organizations,” she said.
“It’s one of the few amicus [briefs] presented in relation to the Electricity Industry Law. We believe that the justices must put climate change in the center of the debate,” Cabrera said.
“…What we want is a constitutional precedent in which the justices recognize that we have a right to have serious and effective climate change mitigation policies.”
Writing in The Wall Street Journal, columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady said the Supreme Court’s ruling on the LIE “will signal whether it is still independent or if it has become a tool of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador,” commonly known as AMLO.
She wrote that that the LIE “effectively puts an end to competition among electricity generators, damages investors, and revives the monopoly power of the state-owned federal electricity company.”
“This contravenes the constitution, which was amended in 2013 to open the market to private capital and guarantee a level playing field for all,” O’Grady added.
She noted that the constitutional challenges were filed by Mexico’s competition commission, members of Congress and the state of Colima, and that Justice Ortiz “wrote the opinion that argues the law is constitutional.”
O’Grady acknowledged that Ortiz – “who staunchly opposed the opening of energy markets in 2013 as a congresswoman for the Workers’ Party and is a hardcore AMLO supporter” – needs only a simple majority of the 11 magistrates to prevail on Tuesday.
“That’s not impossible but it’s unlikely. If it happens it will mark the end of the court as a serious arbiter,” she wrote.
With over 200 in operation, Yucatán has more hog farms than any other state in Mexico. Government of Mexico
A collective of seven organizations has written to President López Obrador and Environment Minister María Luisa Albores to denounce the environmental impact of large pig farms in the state of Yucatán and to chastise authorities for failing to rein in the industry.
In an open letter published by nongovernmental organization Indignación, the collective — “representatives of various Mayan towns of the Yucatán Peninsula” — said that the large-scale pig farming industry has grown more quickly in the state of Yucatán in recent years than anywhere else in the country.
“The establishment of farms with thousands of head of swine is a business activity that has multiple environmental impacts,” the letter said, citing serious damage to “our land, water, natural resources and way of life.”
The seven organizations, among which are the Western Yucatán Mayan Council, the Mayan Committee of Homún and the Yaxkukul Residents Committee, also said that the establishment of huge hog farms has violated “our autonomy and self-determination.”
The activists who wrote the letter want Environmental Minister María Luisa Albores to take action on hog farms. Twitter
They have filed several reports of environmental, social, cultural and territorial damage caused by large-scale pig farms, they said, and have asked all three levels of government to take steps to “put the brakes on this activity and guarantee our right to self-determination and a healthy environment.” But “to date, no authority has listened to us,” the letter said.
In that context, the collective said it “noted with surprise” that the federal Environment Ministry (Semarnat) admitted in a March 25 statement that “one of the main environmental problems on the Yucatán Peninsula is the increase [in the number] of pig farms.”
In a statement with the heading, “Where were the pseudoenvironmentalists when the true devastation of the southeast of Mexico began years ago?” the Semarnat said it was working to remedy the “socio-environmental disaster” that past administrations “allowed and promoted” for “the benefit of a few over the common good.”
The statement — a response to those who have denounced the Maya Train project — cited “some serious situations from the past 30 years that really have damaged the natural wealth” of Mexico’s southeast, the region through which the 1,500-kilometer railroad will run.
One of the examples cited was the “indiscriminate growth” of pig farms.
“In the state of Yucatán, the local pig farmers’ association has mentioned having at least 500 farms in 50 municipalities, … whose impact on human health and the environment due to deforestation, ecological imbalance and contamination of cenotes is undeniable,” Semarnat said.
Protests shut down a large hog farm near Homun, Yucatán.
Given that the federal government acknowledged the serious problems created by pig farms, the Yucatán collective said it was surprised that it has taken no action to remedy the situation.
“Up to now, the actions implemented … [by] the federal (and state) executive to stop this activity that seriously affects our towns are nonexistent,” the letter said.
The collective complained that neither President López Obrador nor other officials who have traveled to Yucatán with him have addressed the issue or met with the affected communities “to listen to us and attend to our petitions.”
It also said that it has had no response from Minister Albores despite inviting her to meet with people adversely affected by the pig farming industry.
“Faced with this situation, once again and in an open way, we would like to invite you to meet with the people … standing up to this industry that contaminates our territory and water and places our survival and cultural identity at risk,” the letter said.
“… In the context of a multicultural country such as ours, intercultural dialogue between indigenous peoples and the authorities of the day is essential,” the collective said,
“… We extend an invitation to visit us between April 6 and 13 in the town of Homún, where for six years we’ve been … [defending] our territory and water from the operations of a mega farm of 49,000 pigs,” it said.
“We and other people who live with the impacts of this industry want to initiate … dialogue about the actions that must be carried out to protect our water, environment and health and our rights as Mayan people.”
Yucatán residents have previously protested agains the Homún “mega farm” in Yucatan’s capital of Mérida. The Supreme Court last year upheld a suspension of the farm’s operations, which were first halted after a 2018 Yucatán court decision; however, activists fear they could be allowed to resume.
Greenpeace said in late March that it had collected via an online petition more than 181,000 signatures against the adverse impact large pig farms have on Yucatán’s environment. The petition urged authorities to not allow the construction of more farms or the expansion of existing ones.
The find was part of a discovery of a group of graves in the Saint Francisco Javier Temple in Puebla city. INAH
Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a man who may have been killed during a battle against invading French forces in the 19th century.
The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said in a statement that a team of specialists found a group of human graves at the Saint Francisco Javier Temple in the historic center of Puebla city. The remains of 20 individuals, including children, have been uncovered.
The majority “could be related to 19th-century epidemics,” INAH said, but the discovery of a male ilium, part of the hip bone, with a bullet hole – as well as the bullet that caused the wound – led researchers to theorize they had found the remains of a soldier killed during the second French intervention in Mexico between 1862 and 1867.
The San Francisco Javier Temple was “used as a fortification by the Republican fighters after the French advance on the Loreto and Guadalupe forts in 1863,” INAH said. The temple has also functioned as a hospital and a jail.
Lizbeth Chicas Martínez, an anthropologist, said the man who was apparently shot would have died from his injury. The bullet “probably pierced important organs, and given the time it was unlikely that a person would have survived,” she said.
The hip bone found by INAH archaeologists with a bullet wound, seen on the right in this photo. INAH
The INAH archaeologists also found a range of items that are believed to have originated in the second half of the 19th century. They include cannonballs, buttons, coffin nails, shoe soles, a metal cross and fragments of Talavera pottery.
“We believe that it’s an unprecedented discovery because on one hand it gives us information about the Jesuit religious complex of Saint Francisco Javier, but it also tells us how the city of Puebla was, at least in the 19th century,” INAH Puebla director Manuel Villaroel told the newspaper El País.
“[It’s] a space that became a stage for the French invasion battles. There are remains of a person who probably died from a bullet wound, as well as elements such as buttons and bullets that can start to give us information about the battle, which occurred in the streets of Puebla … to defend the sovereignty of our country,” he said.
The French, along with the British and Spanish, invaded Mexico in late 1861 after then president Benito Juárez stopped making foreign debt repayments. The British and Spanish left the country after receiving a guarantee they would receive the money they were owed, but the French remained.
Mexican forces defeated the French army at the famous Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, but the city fell to the French just over a year later.
Firefighters respond to a blaze in Colima city that followed an organized crime battle on March 27. Civil Protection
Warning that violent crime and gang activity are widespread, the U.S. Consulate General in Guadalajara issued a strongly worded security alert for Colima, warning its citizens not to travel to the state due to crime and kidnapping amid an ongoing turf war between criminal groups.
While the U.S. Department of State had already included Colima in a Do Not Travel advisory on March 16, that travel advisory was focused on Nuevo Laredo. Colima was included with Baja California, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Guanajuato, Jalisco, México state, Morelos, Nayarit, Sonora and Zacatecas. It advised increased caution in all other states except Campeche and Yucatán, where normal precautions were recommended.
It also instructed citizens to reconsider travel to Mexico due to COVID-19.
The new advisory, issued on April 1, focuses exclusively on the state of Colima, “where shooting incidents between criminal groups have occurred in public places where bystanders have been injured or killed,” the Consulate General said. It also warns particularly against travel to Colima city.
Colima is the smallest state in the country by population, home to just over 730,000 citizens. However, its modest size and remote location haven’t spared it from becoming one of the most violent places in Mexico: 84 people were killed from February 7 to March 7, almost three per day.
Eleven people were killed and five were injured in the state over the weekend.
The wave of violence started with a prison riot on January 25, in which nine inmates were killed. The violence spread to the streets on February 7 in a territorial battle between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the local gang Los Mezcales, a previous ally that switched allegiance to the Sinaloa Cartel.
Colima was Mexico’s most violent state on a per capita basis for five consecutive years between 2016 and 2020, before losing that unenviable title to Zacatecas last year.
Morena party Governor Indira Vizcaíno Silva interrupted 72 years of Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) power in Colima by winning the June 2021 elections.
A gas station attendant at work in Tijuana, where gas stations have been busy serving customers from north of the border.
President López Obrador confirmed Monday that gasoline subsidies have been reinstated in the northern border region.
The Finance Ministry (SHCP) said Saturday that there would be no subsidies between April 2 and 8 in 40 municipalities in Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas.
In a separate statement the same day, the SHCP said there was a shortage of gasoline in the border region due to United States motorists coming into Mexico to take advantage of lower prices.
But the ministry said Sunday that supply wasn’t a problem after all and that the government was committed to keeping gasoline prices stable in the northern border region.
“Despite the international price of gasoline increasing in recent days due to the conflict in eastern Europe, the government of Mexico is committed to keeping the price of gasoline stable throughout Mexico, including the border region,” the SHCP said.
The president confirmed the reinstatement of subsidies at his Monday press conference.
“… Pemex has maintained gasoline supply and has [sufficient] national production inventory to meet demand in the north and all regions of the country.”
López Obrador said Monday that the decision to remove subsidies – which caused gas prices in the northern region to increase by up to 5 pesos over the weekend – had been corrected.
The issue has been “fixed,” he told reporters at his regular news conference, claiming there is enough gasoline supply to meet demand even with subsidies in place.
The subsidies – among which are the lowering, and recently the complete removal, of the IEPS excise tax on fuel – help people a lot, López Obrador said.
“In the case of the border they help Mexicans who have dual nationality and also Americans, who are our neighbors and who come to fill up in Mexico because gasoline is cheaper,” he said. “It’s an act of solidarity toward them as well.”
One person who crosses the border to purchase gasoline is Adrián, a resident of Chula Vista, a city that is part of the San Diego metropolitan area.
“Here it is! Cheaper than USA,” reads an advertisement at a Tijuana gas station.
“From one moment to the next, the price [of gasoline in the United States] went crazy,” he told the newspaper El Universal late last week.
“Rents are expensive, things cost more … [and] now having to pay between US $7 and $8 for a gallon of gasoline is simply crazy,” said Adrián, who crosses into Tijuana at night to fill up his car.
According to the website Gasolina México, the average price of a liter of regular gasoline in Tijuana was 21.02 pesos (US $1.06) at midday Monday, or US $4 per gallon. The average price across Mexico was 21.5 pesos.
According to the AAA gas prices website, the average price in California was US $5.85 per gallon, or 46% higher than the Tijuana price.
Although the SHCP and López Obrador asserted that Pemex has enough gasoline to supply gas stations in the north of the country, there have been reports of shortages. Some gas stations in Tijuana and Mexicali are among those that have recently run out of fuel due to increased demand.
The Finance Ministry said Saturday that supply problems had also been caused by private importers ceasing to purchase gasoline. Energy sector experts said in February that gasoline retailers were effectively being forced to purchase fuel from Pemex because the federal government wasn’t renewing import permits and has shut down some privately owned fuel storage terminals.
The government is determined to keep fuel prices down as much as it can as high inflation causes the prices of many products to surge. The determination to keep prices down this week could be even stronger given that López Obrador’s popularity will be tested in a revocation of mandate, or recall, referendum this Sunday.
The Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, a think tank, published an analysis last month that found that the net cost to the government of subsidizing fuel prices could be as high as 205.5 billion pesos (US $10.4 billion) this year.
I live in the capital’s Roma neighborhood, which is very central and in the part of the city closest to where most tourists would likely start their trek to the airport if they choose to fly out of AIFA.
When my Uber driver, Francisco, picked me up, he was just as excited as I was. He hadn’t been to the new airport to drop off passengers yet, just the airport’s customs for a second job he holds, and he wanted to see the place as much as I did.
There was no fighting for a drop-off spot at the entrance last month when the writer arrived. Also the flight security process took only five minutes.
On the way through the middle of the city (which was the most congested and longest part of the ride), he told me how the airport was so close to his children’s apartment that they were all flying to Nuevo León next weekend to try it out. He was relieved that they would no longer have to go all the way to Benito Juárez.
“The travel times, the wait times, it’s all been dramatically reduced,” Francisco said, “In Benito Juárez, we have to wait eight or 10 hours in customs. Now it doesn’t take any more than an hour to get our merchandise.”
Once we were outside the city, the traveling was faster but as we neared the airport, several signs pointed us in one direction, yet GPS took us in another. Francisco said this was because the main overpass that would take you directly to the airport road wasn’t finished yet.
Not until we were riding along an 11-kilometer cement wall with nothing but dust and construction crews did I start to worry. The signage was nil, and it was starting to get dangerously close to the time I needed to be there for my flight. The Uber app said it would be another 30 minutes, which I did not have.
A woman from whom we ended up asking for directions assured us that straight ahead would be a roundabout and tunnel and that on the other side was the passenger drop-off. She was right, but at this point, the ride had been around an hour and 45 minutes, and I was starting to sweat.
However, once we arrived, my driver didn’t need to jockey for a space to drop me off; there were no other cars. My trip through security took a blissful five minutes.
But have you ever been to a new restaurant where there are too many waiters with not enough for them to do? Felipe Ángeles Airport was a little like that. The security guy stopped me to tell me that he was letting through my sunscreen at 120 milliliters but that next time, everything had to be 100 milliliters max (I think he even wagged his finger). Four attendants at the gate “helped” us form a line to show our tickets. The guy at the Hudson News snack and newspaper shop gave me a free chocolate bar with my purchase!
So the place was a bit of a ghost town, but everything was shiny and new with massive windows that looked out over the tarmac and lots of expansive space that felt modern and well-proportioned. Most shops, however, while plastered with signage, were empty. As far as food, there were a few places to buy snacks and a pastes stand, which is about my least favorite Mexican on-the-go snack, so I passed.
The bathrooms were clean and spacious but with no paper in my stall and no soap in the dispensers.
The flight went off without a hitch, although there was turbulence both leaving and coming back to the airport and I wonder if that’s a result of the geography of the new airport or if I just had bad luck. My flights going and coming to Cancún were both full to the brim with everyone snapping selfies in the new airport before boarding.
The flight back was easy. At baggage claim, there were only three conveyer belts — fine when you only have about eight flights a day but it won’t be so great once the airport is fully operational.
As people exited the terminal, there was general confusion about where to go and how to get home. There is a pick-up area just outside of baggage claim with official taxis, and then to the right near the pick-up area the Suburban Train station and a sign for the bus station on the floor below (but the staircase was surrounded by scaffolding and looked closed).
Right now, the airport is only handling a few flights per day.
The Suburban Train (which is not up and running) and the Buenavista train station will eventually connect to get you from the airport to the city in 45 minutes for less than US $2. I was cheered to see construction crews actually working on the train rails and not just an empty platform and station. The Suburban Train would have been my No. 1 option for getting home, had it been finished.
Rechecking that I was going the right way, I headed down to the bus station which is set up nicely with a waiting area and seven different bus lines all with a small counter selling tickets. But some of the tickets sellers were missing. And even though the official-looking woman supervising the construction next to us said that they were sure to return, they didn’t in the 30 minutes I was there.
I tried to find those buses that I thought would take me to the Benito Juárez airport or the World Trade Center like I’d read about, but all the bus lines only had service to the north and south bus terminals as well as a few other longer distances (Puebla, Toluca, Querétaro, Cuernavaca). I ended up taking a bus to Central Norte bus terminal (at a very reasonable 75 pesos), but once there, I had to take the Metro to my house (I could have taken a cab or a bus as well), which with a suitcase is a pain.
The airport also offers Mexibus, which is the mass-transit option with various stops in México state. It’s like a small Metrobus with nine stops ending at Ojo de Agua, which connects with the Metro Line B.
On the Metro map, it looked like I would need at least four line changes for me to get to the stop closest to my house, and definitely take the same amount if not more time as the bus, so I skipped it.
I made it home in a little under two hours after leaving the airport, so the bus/Metro combo was slightly longer but less than a fourth the price of a cab (the Uber to the airport cost 476 pesos).
In the end, the facilities were new and smart looking, the staff (a lot in military fatigues) were extremely helpful and friendly and the flight was a breeze. But the travel times and the inconvenience of the distance wouldn’t make it worth it for me if I were a traveler visiting Mexico City.
That said, I think for local folks that live near the airport, it is going to change their lives! They already have to travel an hour and a half to fly anywhere, and this airport is going to make it so much simpler for them to move around. The ease of some things – the customs office speed my Uber driver mentioned, breezing through airport security – might not be the same once AIFA is as busy as Benito Juárez, but then again maybe the two airports will balance each other out.
I also think that when the suburban train is finished it will be a much easier, faster, and more convenient way to get into the city – its inauguration is planned for June 2022. I had to wait 20 minutes for an inbound bus. But maybe once there is lots of traffic, they will run every five to 10 minutes.
So don’t believe the naysayers, or the hype. It’s just an airport, not a work of art or a worthless money pit. AIFA will be great for travelers who live in the northern region of the metropolitan area. The distance from the city means that international travelers and people who live in the heart of Mexico City will still want to come through Benito Juárez International Airport for the time being.
But maybe that’s not who this new airport is for, and maybe that’s OK.
Despite the downgrade, the Finance Ministry growth projection is still more optimistic than that of the Bank of México.
The Finance Ministry (SHCP) has cut growth forecasts for 2022 to 3.4%, largely due to high global inflation rates.
The SHCP forecast growth of 4.1% in September, but revised that figure to 3.4% on Friday, and expects 3.5% growth in 2023. Inflation in Mexico hit 7.29% in the first half of March, while U.S. inflation hit 7.9% in February, a 40-year high.
The SHCP’s forecast is more optimistic than the Bank of México’s expectation. The central bank predicts 2.4% growth in 2022. Experts surveyed by the bank expect still lower growth this year, at 1.8%, a far cry from the 5% predicted for the next three years by President López Obrador in February. The last time Mexico achieved two consecutive years of growth over 5% was 1996-97. Prior to that was in the early 1980s.
The SHCP explained its revision by highlighting supply-demand imbalances due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which exacerbated the inflation of food and raw materials prices and could cause shortages of materials for manufacturing and automotive production.
The SHCP said government infrastructure projects, the benefits of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) treaty, the minimum wage increase and government social programs were expected to help economic growth by strengthening the domestic market.
Finance Minister Rogelio Ramírez de la O.
The SHCP also expects the price of oil to bolster the economy, which it estimates will average US $92.90 per barrel in 2022 and $61.10 per barrel in 2023. At the beginning of the year, a barrel was expected to average $55.10 per barrel in 2022.
The SHCP predicts inflation to average 5.5% in 2022 and 3.3% in 2023. It expects the peso to be valued at 20.7 to the dollar in 2022 and 20.9 in 2023.
Finance Minister Rogelio Ramírez de la O said Mexico’s dependence on exports exposed it to the unexpected volatility of global markets. Exports make up 40% of the Mexican economy, and “in that part we have had a negative impact that was not contemplated when we calculated the growth rate of 4%,” he said.
The port of Pichilingue can currently accommodate both cargo and passenger ships. API BCS
A company that intended to build a new 1-billion-peso (US $50.6 million) cruise ship pier and terminal in La Paz, Baja California Sur, has withdrawn its plans, but environmentalists fear that it could revive the project sometime in the future.
Aquamayan Adventures, owned by businessman Isaac Hamui Abadi, planned to build a pier capable of accommodating two large cruise ships in Pichilingue, a Gulf of California port about 40 kilometers north of the city of La Paz.
The plan was met by significant opposition because the development, which was also slated to include restaurants, shops and other facilities for cruise ship passengers, would have impinged on the Balandra Flora and Fauna Protection Area, which includes a beach considered one of the most beautiful in the world.
The Baja California government announced in late March that Aquamayan Adventures had withdrawn its application to build the pier and asked the federal Environment Ministry (Semarnat) to terminate the environmental impact assessment it was carrying out to determine whether the project would be approved.
Mario Sánchez, regional director of the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (CEMDA), said the company’s decision confirmed that the project was incompatible with the natural environment. He also said that local planning regulations explicitly prohibit a project of the type Aquamayan Adventures intended to build.
The Balandra natural protected area’s famous mushroom rock formation, with Balandra Bay in the background.
“Economic and tourism development should not compromise the stability and proper functioning of ecosystems [and] the species that live in them,” Sánchez said, referring to marine animals such as whale sharks and bottlenose dolphins.
CEMDA and other groups asserted that the pier project would adversely affect the Balandra area as well as the whale shark sanctuary in La Paz Bay and the Espíritu Santo Archipelago National Park.
Activists participated in dozens of protests to denounce the project and thousands of state residents signed a petition against it. Semarnat held a public consultation process earlier this year that allowed environmental groups and citizens to raise concerns.
As part of its pier project, which was slated to simultaneously accommodate two cruise ships measuring up to 360 meters and carrying up to 6,000 passengers each, Aquamayan Adventures planned to dredge almost 80,000 cubic meters of La Paz Bay.
Local scientists said that dredging would contaminate the Gulf of California with mud and toxic insoluble hydrocarbons.
Scientists also said that Aquamayan Adventures’ environmental information didn’t outline the impact a proposed desalination plant would have on the Mogote-Ensenada de La Paz wetlands, a site protected by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance. Construction of a desalination plant was planned to provide fresh water to the cruise ship pier and terminal complex.
While groups and citizens opposed to the proposed development are happy with Aquamayan Adventures’ decision, Sánchez warned that it could be a “temporary victory” for environmentalists.
The CEMDA director and Alejandro Águila, an environmental engineer and head of a collective opposed to the pier project, believe that the company could seek approval for the development at a later date.
“It’s a strategy – we’ve experienced it in other processes before. They present the project, test the waters, see what [people] say, … withdraw it and rethink it,” Sánchez said.
Aquamayan Adventures has ample time to reconsider its plans. Via a competitive tendering process held last year, the company was awarded a 25-year concession for the area where it planned to build the new pier. Aquamayan Adventures, which paid 40 million pesos (US $2 million at today’s exchange rate) for the concession, has an option to extend it for an additional 20 years, according to the contract it signed.
