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 Business News | June 2006 
Mexico Candidate Calls for U.S. Investment
 Will Weissert - Associated Press
| | An aereal view of houses in Mexico City is shown in this April 12, 2006 photo. After lagging for most of President Vicente Fox's six-year term, Mexico's economy has taken off just before the July 2 election to replace him. And a government-championed housing explosion has fed the highest growth rate in nearly six years. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo) |
Conservative presidential candidate Felipe Calderon said Friday that the United States and Canada should help build a Mexican economy strong enough to keep people from migrating north in search of work.
Calderon said he would like to see an international development plan similar to those used by the European Union to jump-start Ireland and Spain's economies, which now are booming.
"I think it's very valid to propose that Canada, the United States and Mexico all invest in productive projects and infrastructure in areas that send the most migrants out of the country," the ruling National Action Party candidate told The Associated Press aboard his campaign bus as it left a rally in this small farming community northwest of the capital.
"It's very obvious that building one kilometer of highway here is better than 10 kilometers of wall along the border," he said.
Independent public opinion polls show Calderon about even with his main opponent, leftist former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. The conservative candidate said his party believed he has a slight advantage after a final televised debate on Tuesday.
Calderon said that, if elected, he would aim to create as many jobs as possible, though he declined to say how many. He said the government alone could not generate the needed employment, adding that the most important factor was private investment.
Mexico, Canada and the United States are members of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which took effect in 1994.
Calderon also said he would work to restore diplomatic ties with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and work closely with communist Cuba, even though he doesn't agree with the two countries' philosophies.
"My opinion on a lot of things won't be what drives public policy," he said.
Calderon is on a whirlwind tour of Mexico, a last-ditch effort to win over as many voters as possible before the July 2 election.
He appealed to young people at the rally by pledging to give scholarships, and promised to lower gas and electricity prices for poor families.
Carlos Cruz, 61, a farmer at the rally, said Calderon represented all Mexicans.
"They say he is the candidate of the rich, but here there are many humble people with family in the United States or living in poverty, and we are voting for Felipe Calderon all the same," Cruz said. "Other options are dangerous for Mexico."
Calderon also pledged that claims by Lopez Obrador that one of his relatives was linked to corruption wouldn't derail his campaign.
Calderon's brother-in-law, Diego Zavala, filed a lawsuit Friday against Lopez Obrador after the leftist accused him of involvement in improper government contracts.
Lopez Obrador claimed earlier this week that a company controlled by Zavala, the brother of Calderon's wife, signed lucrative, improper deals with state-run oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, and other governmental energy concerns.
Speaking to reporters on Friday outside a Mexico City courthouse where he filed suit for "moral damages," Zavala said he sued because Lopez Obrador had failed to apologize for making the accusations, which he first levied during a live presidential debate Tuesday night.
"He needs to prove what he alleges," Zavala said.
Calderon said dismissed the allegations.
"It would be costly if it were true," he said. "On the contrary, it will be very costly for (Lopez Obrador) because it will be demonstrated that it is completely false." |
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