Category: Regions

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”.

Mexican financial group Banorte posted a net profit of $98 million for the first quarter, up 78 percent year-on-year. The firrm’s profit from its core banking business totaled $81 million, up 99 percent. The Banorte group includes a bank, a brokerage house, a pension fund and an asset management fund.

Mexican Finance Minister Francisco Gil Diaz has asked prosecutors to bring criminal charges against TV Azteca Chairman Ricardo Salinas Pliego on allegations he used privileged information to trade shares. Mexican regulators separately fined Azteca, its chairman and board member Pedro Padilla $2.3 million for securities law violations.

Mexican financial group Santander Serfin, owned by Spanish largest financial holding Grupo Santander, posted a net profit of $142 million for the first quarter 2005, down 5.5 percent year-on-year. Santander Serfin’s credit portfolio expanded 20 percent and its market share stood at 17 percent at the end of March.

Mexican Finance Minister Francisco Gil Diaz asked prosecutors to bring criminal charges against billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego because he used privileged information to trade shares. Salinas Pliego (no relation to the disgraced former president) owns TV Azteca, and a banking and retail empire. In a separate case, Mexican regulators fined Azteca, Salinas Pliego and board member Pedro Padilla $2.3 million for securities law violations. The government’s latest case against Salinas Pliego goes beyond civil charges filed by the SEC, which in January accused him and Azteca of securities fraud for his part in a deal that earned him $109 million. The government’s case will test Mexican legislation for the first time since it made insider-trading a criminal offense. The charges carry a prison term of two to seven years. TV Azteca has separately filed a criminal suit against Gil Diaz accusing him of trying to block a program criticizing a 1994 government bailout of Mexico’s banks and the 2001 sale of Banamex to Citigroup for $12.5 billion.