Author: Staff

20 years after NAFTA, Mexico has transformed | Dallas Morning News

Leodegarco Ramírez Ramírez smiles as he stands in a spot symbolizing the rise of a new Mexico, an area of cornfields that are slowly being replaced by manufacturing plants where his sons and nephews make airplanes and automobiles.Ramirez and his countrymen are part of a transformation as Mexico moves from a commodity, crisis-prone, agriculture-dominated economy to a more broad-based one with manufacturing plants that produce everything from aerospace and auto parts to refrigerators.“I tell my sons things are looking up for Mexico,” he said. “We’ll go to the United States more out of curiosity than necessity.”There is debate over...

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Mexico’s Amazing Year – Bloomberg

Spare a thought for Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto. After engineering an ambitious reformist pact among Mexico’s three major political parties, he whirled through his first year in office rewriting laws on everything from energy to television and education to elections. Yet Mexico’s economic performance in 2013 was disappointing, and Mexico’s businesses and foreign investors aren’t exactly exuberant. It’s enough to damp a reformer’s spirits.These are early days for Pena Nieto’s new policies, and the reforms he’s achieved so far will take time to show results. A little patience is justified — but not too much. There’s a lot...

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US companies poised to move into Mexican oil industry after reform vote | WashingtonExaminer.com

Mexico’s Congress sounded the starting gun this week for a rush of potentially billions of dollars in oil and gas investment when it passed energy reform legislation that would let foreign companies operate there for the first time since 1938.U.S. businesses are poised to benefit, as the state-owned Mexican oil giant Pemex advocated for the monopoly-busting measure as a means to tap onshore shale plays and deepwater deposits in the Gulf of Mexico.The amount of investment in the Mexican side of the Gulf could be “a factor of 10” greater than what’s been spent on the U.S. portion, said...

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Supporters of Mérida Cite Successes From Aid Package | The Texas Tribune

Criticism of the Mérida Initiative wasn’t on Alejandro Matamoros’ mind recently when he spoke about his passion for teaching how to mix hip-hop tracks and how it helps his at-risk students express how they view Mexico after years of bloodshed.And controversy surrounding the estimated $1.5 billion aid package from the U.S. to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean wasn’t evident during an after-school program in this city’s Felipes Angeles colonia. The children here squealed in delight during dance lessons, where the featured music was a Chipmunks-like rendition of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies.”In these gritty neighborhoods, where paved roads and electricity aren’t...

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Will Mexico open its oil industry to the world?—Commentary

The great controversy playing out over oil reform this month in Mexico will be central to Mexico’s economic future. Can declining oil production be turned around in order to support an expanding industrial economy rivaling the BRICs and become a global manufacturing hub? This oil reform is so important for Mexico that it is the number one plank in President Enrique Pena Nieto’s “Pact for Mexico” modernization program.The outcome also matters a lot to the United States, both as a top trading partner and in terms of whether economic growth in Mexico will reduce illegal immigration and pressure on...

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