“The US government did not comply with the offer to allocate money to the south-southeast,” said López Obrador.
Mexico City.- President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said this Friday that the United States failed to offer to invest in the south-southeast of Mexico when asked about a development plan for that area and part of Central America launched in 2019 with a view to stopping undocumented migration.
“It must be said that the US government did not comply with the US government’s offer that they were going to allocate investment to the south-southeast, but we have invested. The investment in the south-southeast has grown a lot with that purpose of creating development curtains from south to north so that people are not forced to emigrate, “he told a conference from the National Palace.
The president assured that the investment has grown by Mexican authorities “with the purpose of creating curtains of development from south to north so that people are not forced to emigrate and have work in their towns.”
The official said this almost a year after the Secretary of Foreign Relations, Marcelo Ebrard, reported that the United States, through its Private Foreign Investment Corporation (Opic), agreed to allocate $ 800 million to projects that will generate employment and would encourage development in southeastern Mexico.
On July 10, 2019, the Foreign Ministry signed with Opic two letters of interest related to the financing of two projects in southern Mexico, “subject to the successful completion of the agency’s extensive review process.”
The first letter, for 250 million, would generate an additional investment of 150 million dollars for the construction of a natural gas liquefaction plant.
The second letter, for $ 240 million, would trigger an additional investment of $ 80 million for the creation of a wind power plant in the region.
In addition, the Cancellaría specified that the financing will be extended by 52 million dollars for micro, small and medium-sized companies in southern Mexico, and with this an additional investment of 28 million dollars is expected, totaling 80 million dollars.
In total, this would represent an investment of 800 million dollars for the development of the south of the country, a priority for this administration. This investment is the first result of a series of collaborative actions for development between both countries, ”said the Chancellor.
On December 18, 2018, the Government of Mexico and that of the United States agreed in a joint statement on a series of economic supports to channel migration.
Through Opic, the development financing agency of the United States Government, at that time the investment of 4,800 million dollars in the country was announced, 2,000 of them destined for projects in southern Mexico.
Ebrard and Opic head Ryan Brenna signed letters of intent in July that would kick-start the investments.
“This encourages us to move forward,” said Ebrard on that occasion, who later recalled that “Mexico is fulfilling the commitments it made.”
Among them, investment in Central American countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, for months at the center of all eyes on the migration crisis.
“We are already doing it in El Salvador. And the investment of Mexico this year in those three countries is going to be the most important that we have ever done, ”he said.
The investment that Mexico plans in these countries is, in an initial phase, around 100 million dollars.
An investment of some 30 million dollars has already been announced for El Salvador after President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his Salvadoran counterpart, Nayib Bukele, recently met in Tapachula, the southeastern state of Chiapas.
Since October 2018, thousands of migrants from these countries have crossed Mexico seeking to reach the United States, most of them in caravans.
Source: efe.com, sinembargo.mx
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