News Round-Up

Unions in Mexico have vowed to fight back against President Felipe Calderon’s executive decree to close Compañia de Luz y Fuerza del Centro (CLyFC) due to its poor financial performance.  BBC Mundo reports that while Monday the 12th saw various protests in cities throughout Mexico, el Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas (SME), which represents employees of CLyFC, claimed it will bring over 100,000 protestors to Mexico City on October 15th if the decision is not reversed.  Meanwhile, the debate has spread into the political arena, with the Partido de la Revolución Democratica (PRD) claiming the decree violates Mexico’s constitution and announcing they will seek the reversal of the decree by the Supreme Court.  The Mexican government, seeking support for its decision, offered CLyFC employees who accept the closure 33 months of salary.  Hoping to gain more support for the union from the Mexican population, the SME dispatched hundreds of workers across Mexico.

Recently released figures for August show a continuing decline in remittances sent to Mexico.  According to the Latin American Herald Tribune, Mexico received $1.78 billion in remittances in August, a decline of 15.1 percent compared to August of 2008.   August also saw a 2.9 percent decline from July, when Mexico received $1.83 billion in remittances.  Overall, this represents the third consecutive month remittances have declined as well as the fourth-biggest drop in 2009.  The slow recovery of the U.S. labor market, where most Mexican migrants are employed, implies a continual drop in remittances for the foreseeable future.

The recent discovery of a large deposit of lithium and potash has Mexico poised to potentially become a leading producer of both minerals.  Located in central Mexico, the Piero Sutti mining company asserts that it is already in talks with various foreign companies interested in partnering with Piero Sutti to begin extraction of the minerals.  The Latin American Herald Tribune reports that lithium, which is mainly used in cell phones, car batteries, and medicine, saw a 500 percent increase in demand in the past three years.  Demand is expected to remain high as automakers move towards producing more electric vehicles.  Potash, a major component in fertilizers, has also seen a recent spike in demand.  With initial investments potentially topping $200 million, it is hoped that the project will aid in development in the states of Zacatecas and San Luis Potosi, where the minerals are located.

Flickr photo by Esparta Palma and used under the Creative Commons License