Category: Regions

Mexican mobile phone giant America Movil announced that it will buy the Paraguayan unit of Hong Kong-based Hutchison Telecom for an undisclosed sum, though the deal is subject to the approval of Paraguayan authorities. The purchase is part of America Movil’s broader strategy of expanding operations throughout Latin America. The company plans to invest $2 billion in the region this year, mainly in Mexico and Brazil.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico City’s leftist mayor, is standing down to campaign for next year’s presidential elections. He will quit on 31 July. The announcement follows a government decision to drop plans to prosecute him for contempt of court during a land dispute. López Obrador said the prosecution was a plot by conservative President Vicente Fox to prevent him from running for the presidency.

Creditors of Mexican cell phone operator Iusacell have asked for the accelerated payment of principal and interest of the company’s $350 million debt, due December 2006. Iusacell has not made any payments on its debt since June 2003 when the company was bought by Ricardo Salinas Pliego. Creditors also asked Iusacell for an early repayment of debt in January 2004.

Mexico’s attorney general’s office dropped its case against Mexico City Mayor Andres Lopez Obrador, ending an attempt to bring criminal charges against the mayor that could have sabotaged his bid for the presidency. Lopez Obrador was accused of violating a court order when the city built an access road to a hospital. Hundreds of thousands of the mayor’s supporters protested weekly after congress voted April 7 to strip Lopez Obrador of his immunity from prosecution.

Remittances to Mexican families from workers in the US rose 21% year-on-year in the first quarter to $4.1 billion. Fully 88% of remittances were sent through electronic media, 11% were sent through money orders and 1% cash transfers. Mexico’s Central Bank reported 12.3 billion individual remittance transactions in the first three months of the year, with the average amount per transaction at $330.

Mexican state-owned oil monopoly Pemex posted a $455 million net profit for the first quarter, compared to a $91 million loss a year earlier. Sales rose 14% to $17.7 billion. However, Pemex’s total output of crude oil and other liquid fuels stood at 3.74 million barrels per day in the quarter, a 2% decrease, while crude output fell slightly to 3.31 million barrels per day.

GDP growth in Mexico slowed in the first quarter as US manufacturing industry, the biggest buyers of Mexican exports, expanded at a slower pace than a year earlier. Mexico’s economy expanded about 4% year-on-year, compared with a 4.9% expansion in the fourth quarter. Finance Minister Francisco Gil Díaz forecast that rising consumer spending and domestic investment will help make up for part of the decline in export growth. The government expects overall growth of 3.8% this year.

The Organization of American States elected Chilean Interior Minister José Miguel Insulza as its next secretary general following the withdrawal of Mexican Foreign Minister Ernesto Derbez from the race. The vote of 31 in favor, with abstentions from Chile’s historic enemies Bolivia and Peru, and one ballot left blank, came three weeks after Insulza and Derbez, the US-backed candidate, received 17 votes each in five separate secret ballots. This was the most competitive battle to lead the OAS since its foundation. Insulza’s election is a setback for the US which had failed to win enough support for Derbez. Insulza, a pro-market Socialist, is a tough and determined politician nicknamed “the Panzer”.