Thousands reject the extractivist logic at the World Bank-IMF meeting in Peru

Waging Nonviolence: The annual governors’ meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank opened on October 5 in Peru’s capital city. In the meeting, an estimated 800 representatives from 188 countries were negotiating the shape of the world’s soon-to-be renovated finance infrastructure.

While the international media focused on the official meetings, no news outlets outside of Latin America have mentioned the Plataforma Alternativa conference — a parallel three-day meeting organized under the theme “Belying the ‘Peruvian Miracle.’”

More than 1,200 people attended Plataforma Alternativa’s conference. Dozens of young volunteers zoomed through the marbled hallways of Lima’s Hotel Bolívar, which hosted the conference. Participants represented dozens of organizations and countries as diverse as the Netherlands, China, the United States, Belgium, Zimbabwe, Colombia, Indonesia, Spain, Mexico, the Philippines, Germany, Palestine and Argentina.

On Friday, an estimated 5,000 people marched across 70 blocks in Lima, from Plaza San Martín to the first of three police perimeters around the official conference. Groups at the protest included indigenous feminist organizations, the Lima-based Comando Feminista, Bloque Hip Hop, worker unions, the Peruvian Campesino Confederation, and dozens of others. Read more.

Mexico To Use SEZs To Boost Economy Of South

Tax News: Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has introduced draft legislation for the creation of special economic zones (SEZs) in the southern states of the country.

The proposed SEZs would be set up in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the ports of Chiapas and Lázaro Cárdenas. These three areas are located in the states of Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Michoacán, respectively. Read more.

Mexico’s Four Economies Reflect Regional Differences, Challenges

Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas: Mexico is a country of contrasts, its geography varying from deserts to jungles, mountains to beaches. Such differences extend to the economic characteristics of Mexico’s four regions: the manufacturing north, the agrarian north-central, the service-based central and the energy-producing south (Chart 1).

Such economic specialization has contributed to significantly different levels of development—evident in persistent and often worsening disparities in standards of living. Read more.

Mexican Government Cuts 2016 Budget by $13 Billion amid Slumping Oil Prices

Latin American Herald Tribune: The government is cutting the 2016 budget by 221 billion pesos ($13.12 billion) to maintain economic stability amid a challenging global situation, Mexican Finance and Public Credit Secretary Luis Videgaray said.

“The spending planned in the budget for the year 2016 reflects a reduction of 221 billion pesos ($13.12 billion), that is 1.15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) less than in the planned spending for last year,” Videgaray told Congress.

Mexico’s economy was supposed to soar. It’s starting to flop.

The Washington Post: Largely lost amid the frantic scramble after drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s dramatic prison escape, one of the biggest leaps of faith for the Mexican economy landed with a flop.

At the first auction last month to sell the rights to drill for oil in Mexico — as the country opens its oil industry to foreign investment for the first time in eight decades — the government sold just two of its 14 blocks. The disappointing showing for President Enrique Peña Nieto’s signature economic reform prompted the government last week to modify the terms of the contracts for next month’s auction and added to what has been a noticeable string of bad news for Latin America’s second-largest economy. Read more. 

Mexican President Peña Nieto’s Ratings Slip with Economic Reform

Pew Research Center: Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has been praised internationally for his ambitious reforms of everything from the energy sector to education to telecommunications, but a new Pew Research Center survey in Mexico finds that domestically his positive image is faltering and a key component of his political agenda – economic reform – is decidedly unpopular.

Mexicans today are evenly divided in their opinion of Peña Nieto, as negative ratings of the president’s influence have increased by nine percentage points in the past year to 47%. Similarly, negative views of the national government and Congress, both led by Peña Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), have gone up by roughly the same share over the past year, though 57% still say the national government has a positive influence.  Read more. 

Mexico Police Clash With Protesters Opposing Pena Nieto Plan

Bloomberg 
By Nacha Cattan and Eric Martin
October 3, 2013

Mexico City police blocked the entrance to the stock exchange yesterday as thousands rallied on the main business boulevard and clashed with officers to protest President Enrique Pena Nieto’s economic agenda.

Police said about 30,000 students, teachers and supporters closed off the Paseo de la Reforma boulevard, with hundreds outside the Bolsa Mexicana (BOLSAA) and U.S. Embassy. Officers clad in riot gear used fire extinguishers and tear gas to defend themselves against protesters attacking with sticks, rocks and Molotov cocktails in the capital’s historic center. Thirty two officers were injured and 102 protesters detained, Mexico City police said in a statement.  Read more. 

Fighting Education Overhaul, Thousands of Teachers Disrupt Mexico City

The New York Times
August 24, 2013
By Karla Zabludovsky

Mexico’s highly anticipated education overhaul program — intended to weed out poorly performing teachers, establish professional hiring standards and weaken the powerful teachers’ union — is buckling under the tried-and-true tactic of huge street protests, throwing the heart of the capital into chaos.

A radical teachers’ group mobilized thousands of members in Mexico City last week, chasing lawmakers from their chambers, occupying the city’s historic central square, blocking access to hotels and the international airport, and threatening to bring an already congested city to a halt in the coming days.

These mobilizations, analysts said, suggest how difficult it may be for President Enrique Peña Nieto to get through this and other changes he has pushed since taking office in December, including an energy and telecommunications overhaul deemed vital to revving up the economy.  Read more. 

Mexico's officials wage PR battle to sell energy reform plan

L.A. Times 
By Tracy Wilkinson and Richard Fausset
August 13, 2013

Mexico City - The little boy with the twinkling eyes smiles out from full-page newspaper ads. His hands are held out for us to see, covered in black oil, an offshore platform floating in the sea behind him.

"Oil is and always will be ours," the ad proclaims in large capital letters.

The Mexican government may not be selling its gigantic state oil company, but officials are going full steam in selling what they plan to do with it.

On Tuesday, the day after President Enrique Peña Nieto unveiled a broad package of energy-sector reforms, the government flooded the airwaves, newspapers and other media with slick messages defending the proposal. Government officials made the rounds of television and radio talk shows.  Read more. 

Mexico opposition parties again threaten to walk away from economic pact

Reuters
July 14, 2013

Mexico's opposition parties on Sunday blasted the government for failing to combat political corruption and threatened to walk away from a pact that aims to strengthen the economy unless President Enrique Pena Nieto makes swift concessions on electoral reform.

After taking office in December, Pena Nieto announced a pact with the opposition to pass reforms aimed at boosting the country's tax revenues and buoying production at state-owned oil giant Pemex

The pact, signed by the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), the conservative National Action Party (PAN) and Pena Nieto's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), appeared under threat last week after campaigns for state and local elections deteriorated into mud-slinging and violence.  Read more.

Mexico's main leftist party proposes path to oil reform

Reuters
By Dave Graham
June 25, 2013

From the moment he took office in December, Pena Nieto has had to deny accusations he plans to privatize the company, repeatedly forcing him on the defensive over a reform his government plans to present by September at the latest.

Leading leftist politicians, such as Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the runner-up in the last two Mexican presidential elections, have pledged to oppose the reform vigorously.

Street protests are likely to be launched against the liberalization of Pemex in the coming weeks. Read more. 

Global labor protests mark May Day

USAToday
May 1, 2013

CHILPANCINGO, Mexico — Protesters armed with pipes, spray paint and slingshots marched through this state capital south of Mexico City, vandalizing public buildings to express opposition to teacher competency exams and the revoking of the right to sell their jobs to the highest bidder.

The Mexico teachers protest was among many demonstrations worldwide for May Day, a day when labor unions traditionally head to the streets to demand more pay and benefits and job protections.  Read more. Read more. 

Obama visit to Mexico will highlight changing economic, security agendas under new president

The Washington Post
Updated: April 30, 2013

MEXICO CITY — Mexico is ending the widespread access it gave to U.S. security agencies in the name of fighting drug trafficking and organized crime as the country’s new government seeks to change its focus from violence to its emerging economy.

The change was confirmed by Mexico’s Foreign Ministry on Monday as the government lays out a broad bilateral agenda in advance of Thursday’s visit by U.S. President Barack Obama.

All contact for U.S. law enforcement will now go through “a single door,” the federal Interior Ministry, the agency that controls security and domestic policy, said Sergio Alcocer, deputy foreign secretary for North American affairs.

It’s a dramatic shift from the direct sharing of resources and intelligence between U.S. and Mexican law enforcement under former President Felipe Calderon, who was lauded by the U.S. repeatedly for increasing cooperation between the two countries.  Read more. 

Mexico Telecommunications Reform: Too Good to Be True?

HuffPost Blog
Irene Mia
March 28, 2013

A long-awaited telecommunications reform, presented to Congress on March 11 by Enrique Peña Nieto, was passed swiftly by the lower house with relative few modifications to its ambitious scope and is now set to be approved by the upper house in an unthinkable development just a few months ago when, in the run up to the presidential election (in July 2012), social protests, loosely coordinated by the #YoSoy132 student movement, erupted against media bias in favor of the now ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). More in general, the telecommunications reform, coupled with other significant steps made by Peña Nieto's administration to advance its reform agenda in just a few months may reassure those who were skeptical of the president's willingness and ability to challenge powerful interest groups (including unions, state government and business lobbies) which had historically been part of the PRI support base. The president has proven a master in pragmatic politics, as many other PRI leaders in the past, reaching out to the opposition and brokering deals outside and before presenting bills in Congress. Read more. 

Mexico's lower house gives general approval for telecoms bill

Reuters
By Dave Graham and Miguel Gutierrez
Mexico City, Mar 22, 2013

Mexico's lower house of Congress gave broad approval Thursday night to a telecommunications reform that threatens to loosen tycoon Carlos Slim's grip on the phone market and broadcaster Televisa's dominance of the airwaves.

The proposal attracted overwhelming support, with 414 lawmakers in favor of the reform and only 50 opposed.

Lawmakers must still vote on amendments to the bill, which has dampened confidence in Slim's prospects, though investors are hopeful the Mexican tycoon can at least partly offset curbs to his phone empire by entering the television market.

The bill, presented by the government on March 11, aims to boost competition in the telecoms sector by increasing foreign investment and giving regulators the power to force companies with a market share above 50 percent to sell assets.

"In our country there is just one territory and it is not the territory or property of any one telephone company," said Julio Cesar Moreno, a congressman and member of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, during the debate.  Read more. 

Enrique Pena Nieto Reforms: Mexico's President Pushes Sweeping Changes To Telecom, Oil Industry

The Huffington Post 

By Michael Wissenstein
March 19 2013

Mexico City -- New President Enrique Pena Nieto has been fast out of the blocks in attacking some of Mexico's toughest issues in a country often stymied by monopolies and corruption.

He arrested the most powerful woman in Mexico, leader of the largest union in Latin America, on allegations of corruption that previous presidents saw but were too compromised to tackle. He is taking on the richest man in the world, Carlos Slim, and pledges to bring diversity to a television industry dominated by the head of the largest network in Latin America, a scion of one of Mexico's leading families.

At one time all three were key allies of Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled for 71 years with a combination of coercion and corruption before being voted out of office in 2000. Now, Pena Nieto is declaring that there are no more sacred cows.

The moves have built momentum behind what could be his most dramatic and difficult reform – modernizing and drawing foreign and private capital to the behemoth state oil company, a long sacrosanct but increasingly inefficient pillar of the Mexican economy. On Sunday, at a celebration of the 75th anniversary of the nationalization of the Mexican oil business, Pena Nieto said again that he will transform Petroleos Mexicanos. The longtime head of the Pemex union, who had been expected by many to fight any changes but has been the subject of questions about unexplained family wealth, pledged his support.

Pena Nieto says his plan will make Mexico more democratic and competitive in the world economy, and his drive for reform is fueling international confidence about Mexico. Rating company Standard and Poor's raised the country's long-term sovereign credit rating from "stable" to "positive" last week, citing optimism about the government's ability to carry out structural changes. The Mexican peso is stronger against the dollar than it's been in a year and a half.

But some analysts warn against mistaking style for substance and making early declarations of victory against entrenched powers built up by the very party that now says it's trying to bring them to heel. It will take many months, in some cases years, before Pena Nieto's reform agenda becomes law and produces its first results, plenty of time for big promises to be derailed by special interests, institutional inertia and the PRI's old guard.  Read more. 

Analysis: Mexico's reforms hook U.S. investors

Reuters
By Daniel Bases
New York, Mar 18, 2013

(Reuters) - Don't be fooled by the Mexican stock market's slow start to the year. The country's push for economic reforms and the revival of the economy of its largest trading partner, the United States, are stirring investor interest in Latin America's No. 2 market.

International fund managers say recent announcements of reforms to Mexico's education system and telecommunications sector provide a positive backdrop for U.S. investors to keep putting roughly 30 percent of their allocations for Latin America into Mexican stocks and bonds.

"You saw a lot of optimism around elections and the potential reforms," said Darren Capeloto, portfolio strategist focused on Latin America at Payden & Rygel in Los Angeles.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, in office since December, has managed to reach agreement with opposition lawmakers to push through reforms, the most important of which will be in the state-dominated energy sector this summer.  Read more. 

Mexico's Slim welcomes planned telecoms reform

Chicago Tribune 
March 17, 2013

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim, whose wealth has taken a knock since the government on Monday unveiled a reform bill to overhaul the industry he dominates, said on Sunday he welcomed the plan as a boon for competition.

Hailed as the biggest shake-up of Mexico's phone and television market in decades, the bill aims to boost foreign competition and give regulators the power to force firms to sell assets if they have more than 50 percent of the market.

Slim, the world's richest man, controls about 80 percent of Mexico's fixed line business and 70 percent of the mobile market through his phone company America Movil. He declined to discuss the impact of the reform on his firm at an event in Mexico City.  Read more. 

Mexico Seeks Telecommunication Reform To Open Foreign Investment In Telephone, TV Markets

Huffington Post 
By Michael Weissenstein

Mexico City - President Enrique Pena Nieto moved Monday to overhaul and strengthen the weak and chaotic regulations that have allowed the world's richest man and its largest Spanish-language media empire to exert near-total control of Mexico's lucrative telephone and television markets.

The reforms would give the Mexican government tools to take on multibillionaire telephone tycoon Carlos Slim and Televisa CEO Emilio Azcarraga, independent observers said. The two rivals' holds on their respective markets have been widely seen as emblems of regulatory dysfunction in a country aspiring to join the ranks of the world's economic superpowers.

Their companies' pervasive influence has repelled a series of attempts to break their dominance over the years. The tycoons' power could thwart fresh efforts despite Pena Nieto's push to put teeth into Mexico's deeply flawed regulatory system, experts said.

The reforms would create two new national television channels and form a new independent regulatory commission along the lines of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, with the power to unilaterally punish non-competitive practices, including withdrawing corporations' licenses. A second independent commission would be able to order firms to sell off assets in order to reduce their market dominance.  Read more. 

A traditionalist shines through Mexico's fresh new face

Los Angeles Times

By Richard Fausset

March 10, 2013

MEXICO CITY — They elected a youthful president, a self-styled defender of democratic principles who promised to bring the country up to 21st century standards.

But many Mexicans suspected that an old-fashioned dinosaur heart was beating beneath Enrique Peña Nieto's smartly tailored suits, an inheritance from his Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, whose top-down, quasi-authoritarian rule defined much of Mexico's 20th century history.

On Sunday, after 100 days of living under Peña Nieto's rule, the Mexican people have a better idea of the ways in which their 46-year-old president, and his vintage political party, plan to manage the future of the United States' southern neighbor, a country rife with promise and peril. They are also discovering that Peña Nieto may be a kind of hybrid political creature, intent on effecting change while hewing to some of his party's older ways.  Read more.