Media Law Advances in Senate

Seeking to modernize the regulatory framework for radio, television and other media, a Senate panel Thursday approved a significant change to the current law, allowing 20-year extensions to existing concessions after due reviews instead of the automatic extensions that were declared unconstitutional recently by the Supreme Court. The modification, approved by votes from the majority party PRI and the leftist PRD, also establishes that the state receive payment for granting those 20-year concessions and their extensions for a similar period. Amounts will be established by the Finance Secretariat. The Senate Radio, Television and Cinematography Committee wrote into the law a mandatory statute of technological modernization for radio, which means that AM stations will be absorbed by digital FM stations. Still pending review and debate is the crucial issue of setting new guidelines for electoral use of the communications media, with stiff sanctions in cases of abuse.

Antitrust Bill Debate Rages On

With Congress scrambling to finetune the bill submitted by President Felipe Calderón to reform the Economic Competition Code, the ongoing debate Thursday centered on the creation of a key figure that would be parallel to the five commissioners forming the Federal Competition Commission (CFC). With the idea of having a more transparent CFC, the business sector has insisted on the creation of a separate arbiter that would remove the CFC’s current position in monopoly issues as judge and prosecutor. Various business groups propose that the impartial figure be created as a special antitrust unit within the Tax Administration Tribunal, to write opinions on anticompetitive practices for their ultimate review by the CFC commissioners. Elsewhere, although it seems like a waste of effort, Claudio X. González, chairman of the influential Mexican Businessmen Committee, insisted that since state monopolies like Pemex and the Federal Electricity Commission are the instances that do the most harm to businesses, they should be included in the antitrust reform. The debate raged on regarding the experience of countries where arbiter figures parallel to antitrust agencies have not yielded positive results.

Employment Numbers Questioned

The recent announcements regarding job creation and economic growth perspectives for this year seem more like campaign ads than a reflection of reality, said Thursday the Institute for Economic Research (IIE), a private think tank. This seems more like politicians on campaign, said José Luis Calva, a researcher at the National University of Mexico and IIE member, during the unveiling of the IIE’s own growth projections for this year. The group is forecasting a puny advance of only 2.5% in the Gross Domestic Product, an estimate that contrasts sharply with the Finance Secretariat’s own forecast of 4.1%. GDP shrank by 6.5% last year. We should remember that the government has been known to deceive itself, as it happened with the ‘little cold’ instance last year, said Calva. Early in 2009, then Finance Secretary Agustín Carstens, currently governor of the central bank, remarked that the United States may be experiencing pneumonia, but Mexico suffers only from a little cold. The chief of IIE, Jorge Basave, said government estimates should not be so optimistic when nothing has been done to stimulate the domestic market.

Wal-Mart Boosted by Central America

Wal-Mart de México reported Thursday that March sales grew 28.3% at an annual rate, to nearly 30 billion pesos (US$2.4 billion), an advance that was in part attributed to the consolidation for the first time of sales in Central America. In Mexico only, March sales by total units (including those open less than a year) reached 23.07 billion pesos, up 9.9% from March 2009, while same-store sales (units open for more than a year) forged ahead by 3.1%.

Telefónica To Defend Customers

As next Saturday’s deadline approaches for cellphone users to register their units, the Mexican market’s number two player, Telefónica (a unit of Spain’s telecoms giant) announced Thursday that it will not cut off service to customers who failed to sign up for the infamous Renaut, or National Registry of Mobile Telephone Users. If necessary, we will go to court to defend our customers, the company said in a statement. According to unofficial figures since there are no official ones at this point, 25 million out of the country’s 83.5 million users have not registered their phones.

rmena@eleconomista.com.mx