Foreign investment opportunities, efforts to clean up three highly-contaminated rivers and the 2025 federal budget were among the issues President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke about at her morning press conference on Thursday.
Here is a brief recap of her latest mañanera.
Larry Fink ‘agrees that it’s a good time for Mexico’
Sheinbaum told reporters that during a meeting on Wednesday, she spoke to Larry Fink, CEO of investment management company BlackRock, about the government’s plan to create “specialized” industrial corridors known as “well-being hubs” across Mexico.
“There are opportunities for investment, international funds have a place in our country,” she said.
“… We agreed on many issues. For example, we spoke about the development of ports and highways, and about mixed [public-private] investment schemes that were developed with President López Obrador,” Sheinbaum said.
“All that was part of the conversation, and he agrees that it’s a good time for Mexico,” Sheinbaum said, referring to the country’s nearshoring opportunity.
Asked whether Fink made any commitment to invest a certain amount of money in Mexico, Sheinbaum said that they didn’t speak in particular about “figures.”
Conagua working to clean up 3 rivers
Sheinbaum said that the National Water Commission (Conagua) has begun projects to clean up Mexico’s “most contaminated” rivers: the Tula River in Hidalgo; the Atoyac River in Puebla; and the Lerma-Santiago River in Jalisco.
The commission is working to determine all the causes of contamination, she said.
“There are industrial sources of contamination,” Sheinbaum said, adding that companies that are breaching regulations are being forced to comply.
“Companies that discharge [contaminants] to drains or to a river or to any body of water have to comply with a norm, and that norm requires them to have treatment plants,” she said.
Sheinbaum said that some municipal authorities are also contaminating rivers with untreated wastewater.
Cleaning up contaminated rivers is “very important work and there obviously has to be resources to be able to do all the projects,” she said.
“But it is fundamental because … we have to have healthy rivers,” Sheinbaum said.
2025 budget is ‘practically ready’
Sheinbaum noted that the government’s proposed 2025 budget has to be sent to Congress by Nov. 15.
“Obviously the social programs are maintained, there are resources for new programs, for education, for health care,” she said.
“There are savings in some areas, very significant ones too, that allow us to direct investment to trains, highways and water [projects],” Sheinbaum said.
“The [budget] package is practically ready. We’ve been working on it since before we came into government,” she said.
By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies ([email protected])
