Posted on 04/08/2006 3:22:43 PM PDT by Shuttle Shucker
Mexican lawmakers won backing from the nation´s largest business group for a bill to increase competition in industries ranging from telecommunications to manufacturing, paving the way for passage as early as this month.
The legislation, which would increase fines for anti-competitive practices, limit appeals and force repeat offenders to sell assets, may be voted on by the Chamber of Deputies Economy Committee on April 18, said Jorge Luis Hinojosa, a member of the committee. The full house would vote two days later, barring significant changes, and the Senate by the end of the month, he said.
Teléfonos de México SA, the fixed-line telephone company controlled by Carlos Slim, is among companies in Mexico whose high prices are limiting the nation´s ability to compete, central bank Governor Guillermo Ortiz said March 8.
The proposed law is aimed at curbing such dominance to help spur economic growth and create jobs, said Eduardo Pérez Motta, chief of the anti-trust agency. "It´s a law that will have a big impact on the country´s competitiveness, on growth, on employment and with very clear benefits for consumers," Pérez said in an interview late Thursday.
The lower house committee on Thursday reached agreement on the bill with the Business Coordinating Council (CCE for its intials in Spanish) )and the antitrust agency, Hinojosa, a member of President Vicente Fox´s National Action Party, said in an interview on Thursday. The law would increase fines to as much as 10 percent of annual sales and create incentives for executives to bring forth evidence of anti-competitive practices, said Pérez.
The agency would have the power to make visits to companies to verify compliance and could break up companies that repeat offenses, he said. "Mexico has been losing competitiveness and a lot of it is because inside the country there hasn´t been competition," said Hinojosa. "The intention of this law is to give incentive inside Mexico so there are no monopolies and to give access for more competition in markets."
Companies backed the bill after lawmakers agreed to require a court order for verification visits and to limit the visits to information previously cited, said Oscar Fitch, a member of the business council. Business executives also demanded clearer definitions under the law for terms such as monopolistic practices and efficient markets.
"We´re now all in agreement," said Fitch, president of the Mexico-City lobbying firm Fitch & Asociados. "It´s a step forward because it´s a more modern law, it gives us more legal certainty and there´s less discretion on the part of authorities."
Telmex said in a statement it declined to comment on the law while it´s still under debate in Congress. The number of appeals from companies that use several courts to delay implementation of decisions may drop by 30 percent under the new law, Pérez said.
So you are saying that universal healthcare is equal to health care breakthroughs in Mexico. Oh, well!
Yes, we have many socialist programs in the USA. This is exactly the reason the illegals are coming. Some Mexicans come to work but many come for welfare and they will be demanding it this week in many marches. Obrador wants to give elderly Mexicans a small pension just like the U.S. He wants Mexico to take care of Mexico.
The U.S. has enough of their own problems without having to worry about fixing Mexico's problems. How many years after the passage of the great NAFTA, 1992, will it take to "fix" Mexico?
Feel free to clarify then...
Mexico's come a long way in the past decade. It's made a lot more progress than the USA in some ways.
Rather than digress on tangents about that, I'd like to simply say that Mexico is making progress against its monopolies, and our cracking down on illegal immigration helps with this.
They should all go back instead of breaking our laws that they know OUR crooked leaders won't enforce...
Our crooked leaders want US to be financially reponsible for these invaders, and Vicente Fox sits back and smiles at the suckers in D.C.
Fox thinks he wins either way. If we DON'T accept the illegals, then Mexicans focus their hatred on our so-called racism (instead of his not doing more to help his own people by taking on Mexico's monopolistic robber barons).
The people of America are banging their heads against a wall, trying to get through to the President of the United States, but all he wants to do is encourage this invasion and destroy our sovereignty.
Something stinks in the White House, and in the Senate. America needs a BIG CHANGE in "leaders"!
You make some very interesting points.
To me it seems like the best way to minimize the amount of damage that pro-illegals types here in the USA can do is to make Mexico's economy stronger so more illegals can afford to stay home or go back home. Hopefully we can lasso Carlos Slim and some other robber barons down there. Some Mexicans are trying very hard, I believe, but as with any reform drive, it can be a lonely battle. The more media outlets praise their efforts up here, and the more the USTR uses the WTO to help, the more they can get the job done for their beloved homeland.
Interesting article. Thank you.
Thanks, SS. You're right!
mordida runs deep and wide in mexico...
Actually Slim will need to break some laws under close public scrutiny in order to get these congressional reps to vote like he would want. There's no incumbency in Mexico's Congress and they're all about to retire, too. And at a time when Televisa (which has most of the t.v. market) is about to start offering its own phone service (through its 50% owned subsidiary Cablevision), Slim can't afford to give the media anything suggesting impropriety because they would HARP on it. And then there's cyberspace and the WTO and the foreign investment community.
Mexico has 3 (not 2) viable political parties and they point out corruption much more often than our complacent 2 party system does up here. And there are apparently far more major newspapers servicing Mexico per capita than the USA has. And they're vigorous in some ways. Even the corrupt ones in Mexico's congressional and media circles want to scare Slim enough to get him to really do enough favors for them. At some point Slim may decide the telco sector isn't nearly as lucrative as it once was, and he may decide to let competition emerge to punish the labor union that has at times frustrated him.
We'll see how things go now that we've put Mexico's government and economic status quo into global scrutiny as a result of the immigration showdown.
Why the USTR is ignoring Mexico's 49% foreign ownership restriction imposed against international telcos is beyond me...
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http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/14279534.htm
Posted on Thu, Apr. 06, 2006email thisprint this
Administration singles out trade barriers in global phone market
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States took aim at high mobile phone charges in Germany, Japan, Mexico and Switzerland and sizable licensing requirements in China in a new report Thursday detailing barriers American telecommunication companies face in doing business abroad.
``Barriers in foreign telecommunication markets negatively impact U.S. telecommunications manufacturers and operators as well as U.S. consumers and any U.S. business that does business abroad,'' U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman said in issuing the annual review.
He said the barriers were also harmful to the foreign countries that erect them because they adversely affect the ability of those nations to reap the benefits from competition in telecommunication.
Portman said his office would continue to monitor the practices singled out in the telecommunications review in an effort to have them modified or eliminated.
That review could involve bringing cases against offending countries before the World Trade Organization, but Portman did not indicate any practices where he believed WTO cases should be filed.
The review said that Germany, Japan, Mexico and Switzerland were charging ``excessively high'' fees for certain mobile phone operations. The report also cited Germany, India and Singapore for restricting access of foreign companies to the use of leased land lines.
China was cited for what the report called a long-standing problem of imposing an excessive capitalization requirement for foreign telecommunication companies seeking to do business in China.
The report said China required a foreign company to have $240 million in capital in order to obtain a license to offer basic telecommunication services where the similar requirement in many other countries was just $1 million.
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U.S. Trade Representative: http://www.ustr.gov
Can you believe Drudge is reporting that half a million are marching for immigration reform in Dallas today? How 'bout in Mexico:
http://www.directory.com.mx/immigration
I guess you've seen the written transcript of Limbaugh's Laws by now?
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/13719.html
Now other talkshow hosts are covering that particular aspect of the Mexican immigration issue, as well as other website news services and such, including:
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/gaffney040406.asp
Why more mainstream media outlets still ignore Mexico's official immigration racism towards gringos:
http://www.directory.com.mx/immigration
is beyond me, but maybe it's just a matter of time.
Yes, I've seen Limbaugh's Laws, but don't necessarily agree with all of them.
I just enjoy listening to the program.
He is sharp, sharp, sharp.
I don't know that Rush agrees with all of Limbaugh's Laws either. It's an innovative way for him to make a satirical / parody-style (and therefore memorable) point though. I think your user name's sharp too. It gets folks to ask more. The story behind is is neat.
What ISN'T neat is the fact that illegal immigrant amnesty almost got passed right under our noses, and we were powerless. But if we can shape up Mexico, many of those will want to go back with their dollars and buy Mexican property (which is considerably cheaper). That's what this thread's all about... These are exciting times for pro-entrepreneurial legal reformers in Mexico.
Thanks for caring :-)
In a sign of maturity, today Vicente Fox is focusing his energies NOT on pushing the US to reform its immigration laws but rather for Mexico to reign in its near phone monopoly's high prices which he said hurt Mexico's global competitiveness:
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/342099.html
The article's in Spanish but you can take my word for it if you like.
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