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Arturo Herrera, Secretary of Finance and Public Credit of Mexico last April.Gladys Serrano
In the midst of the controversy generated by the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, by not recognizing the electoral victory of Democrat Joe Biden, the Secretary of the Treasury, Arturo Herrera assured that the policy will not affect trade between the two countries, which the Government sees as the antidote to the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus.
"The Free Trade Agreement was already the central commitment before the covid and it must continue to be," said Arturo Herrera during a conference organized, virtually, by the Americas Society-Council of the Americas (AS-COA).
The secretary said he was "convinced" that "beyond the political conjunctures", including the one currently in the United States as well as the electoral year that awaits Mexico in 2021, trade relations between countries will attract investment.
“There is clear coordination in the North American area, between Canada, the United States and Mexico.
In a context of great uncertainty in the world, achieving certainty in this corridor is what we think will attract an important part of investments to this region ”.
Herrera also announced that in the coming weeks the Government of Mexico will announce new investments by the private sector, which they hope will include energy projects.
Meanwhile, the Mexican president continues without moving from his approach to avoid acknowledging Biden's triumph.
Asked about the consequences that his attitude may have, this Wednesday he insisted: "There is no reason for retaliation, because we are adhering to our policy of principles, to our legality; furthermore, we are not a colony, we are a free, independent, sovereign country. The Government of Mexico is not a fool of any foreign Government. "
"The most important investment made in the country is private sector investment, because for every peso that we put in, the private sector puts in almost seven pesos," Herrera explained.
“Infrastructure was a central issue on which we wanted to bet and which also complements, clearly, the strategy of an open economy based on free trade agreements.
To take advantage of the free trade agreement, we need good infrastructure, because if the investment doesn't go away, it stays in the north of the country, that is, on the border, "he said, referring to the high transportation costs generated by the lack of highways in the country. quality in the country.
The Secretary of the Treasury estimates that the Mexican economy will fall by 8% this year and will recover by 4.6% in 2021. On Wednesday, the risk rating agency Fitch Ratings announced that it was maintaining Mexico's investment grade, something that Herrera assured it is important to attract investment.
In addition, regarding the advances of the pharmaceutical company Pfizer in the clinical trials of its vaccine for covid-19, the official said that Mexico has been "extraordinarily productive in the acquisition of potential vaccines."
Once it has access to it, the country, he assured, can vaccinate 10 million inhabitants per month.
Asked about the dilemma in which countries have found themselves to protect employment and protect the health of the inhabitants, Herrera explained that due to the size of the informal economy in Mexico, the government had no way of applying support measures such as those implemented in other developed countries.
"We have an informal population of 57%, the measures that were applied in Germany and Switzerland are not applicable," said the secretary.
“We have to support each other much more in the sense of social responsibility, that is, in which we all have to make sure that we carefully keep our distance.
In public transport in Mexico City, everyone is obliged to wear a mask, to be careful and in general it seems to me that so far this is something that the population of Mexico has shown, because if they did not explain to us how they have increased economic activity while at the same time contagions have decreased so far ”.
