| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico | November 2009 
Carlos Slim Says Jobs, Construction Are Key to Growth
 Crayton Harrison & Lindsey Arent - Bloomberg
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November 19, 2009
| | Lifetime Honorary Chairman of Telefonos de Mexico Carlos Slim Helu participates in the Wall St. Journal CEO Council on "Rebuilding Global Prosperity" in Washington November 16, 2009. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque) | |
Billionaire Carlos Slim, who controls Mexico’s biggest wireless and land-line phone companies, said spending more on construction to maintain roads and cities will fuel employment and create economic growth.
“The important recovery is in the real economy,” not in the financial industry, Slim, 69, told Bloomberg Television in Washington today. “When employment begins to grow and sustain good figures, we will see a better time.”
Slim’s construction financing firm, Impulsora del Desarrollo y el Empleo en America Latina SAB, is bidding on projects such as Mexican toll roads to grab a larger piece of government spending on infrastructure. The company won a toll- road project in northwest Mexico last month with a 3.22 billion- peso ($247 million) bid.
Slim, deemed the world’s third-richest man by Forbes magazine, controls America Movil SAB, Latin America’s biggest wireless company, and Telefonos de Mexico SAB, Mexico’s largest fixed-line carrier. He said his companies will spend about $7 billion next year, partly on networks in Latin America and real- estate and construction projects in Mexico.
America Movil plans about $3.5 billion in capital spending next year, Chief Financial Officer Carlos Garcia Moreno said this month at the Bloomberg Economic Forum in Mexico City. Telmex, also in Mexico City, has a budget this year of 8 billion pesos and hasn’t completed next year’s plan, Chief Financial Officer Adolfo Cerezo said last month on a conference call.
Telmex Internacional SAB, which offers phone, TV and Internet service in Latin America, may spend “a little bit more” than $1.1 billion next year, Chief Executive Officer Oscar Von Hauske said last month on a conference call.
Stock Performance
Ideal, as Slim’s construction financing firm is known, rose 2 centavos to 13.12 pesos at 4 p.m. New York time in Mexico City trading. America Movil advanced 44 centavos to 31.88 pesos.
Slim controls Grupo Financiero Inbursa SA, a Mexican bank, and Grupo Carso SAB, a holding company with industrial and retail properties. He also holds a stake of about 7 percent in New York Times Co. and provided the publisher with a $250 million loan in January.
“News, information, knowledge, content is not dying, it is growing,” Slim said. “All this can be on paper or electronic, by other means. And New York Times is doing very good in paper, traditional, and in electronic.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Crayton Harrison in Mexico City at tharrison5(at)bloomberg.net; Lindsey Arent in Washington at larent(at)bloomberg.net
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