Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said that foreign firms had committed $20b in investments to Mexico for 2025. She discussed the investments at a meeting with 240 Mexican and American business leaders held at the National Palace on Tuesday (15 October).
“It was a very good meeting […] and we clarified that [the judicial and energy reform do not] represent a problem for investment, to the contrary, it’s going to strengthen what we call a State of Law and at the same time we laid out our investment strategy,” Sheinbaum said of the one hour meeting.
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She added that it was “false” that the government was passing the judicial reform to have control of the legislative branch and that the goal was to free the judicial system from corruption.
The biggest announcements of the day included a $15b project by Mexico Pacific LLC for an LNG gas terminal, a $6b investment by Amazon Web Services (AWS), and a $1.5b pledge by Royal Caribbean for the coast resort of Mahahual.
While detailed at the Tuesday meeting, some of these investment commitments are not new. The Mexico Pacific Gas project has been in the works since 2020 and would still require cross-border gas pipelines to be approved and built.
Mexico’s Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard didn’t specify what the AWS investment would be used for. However, earlier this year AWS had already announced an investment of “more than $5b” to build cloud computing infrastructure. At the time, the head of AWS’s Mexico Unit Ruben Mugartegui said the investment would be spread out over the next 15 years.
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By GlobalDataEbrard also mentioned the creation of a digital platform that would permit greater agility for binational companies. He added that while $20b of investments had been committed, he expected this number could rise to $30b.
Rather than announcing fresh investments, the meeting might have been more geared towards assuaging investors’ nervousness surrounding the country’s judicial and energy reforms as Ebrard and Sheinbaum emphasized the safety of investments in Mexico.
A judicial reform passed in September, a legacy of former president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, would make all 7,000 of the country’s judges stand for election. The reform has been highly controversial, with protesters breaking into the Senate while the change was being deliberated in early September.
The reform shook investor confidence, particularly given AMLO had repeatedly attacked foreign energy companies for allegedly weakening the state-owned power company.
The IMF has said that reforms “create important uncertainties” about contract enforcement and the rule of law.
