CCE to Analyze Effects of Anti-Inflationary Plan

Mexico’s Business Coordinating Council (CCE) said that actions must be taken to adequately protect consumers while implementing the Agreement to Strengthen the Package Against Inflation and Scarcity (PACIC), which was signed by 15 companies. 

The plan to control inflation asks business people, food producers and retailers to maintain their prices until Feb. 28, 2023. It aims to keep the cost of the basic food basket at MX$1,039 (US$51.87) and is part of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s search for new formulas to reduce inflation in the country. 

Mexico’s Minister of Finance Rogelio Ramírez de la O explained that the plan aims to reduce inflation in part by facilitating trade. "The authority will suspend the review of any regulation that is considered to impede or make more expensive the importation and internment of food and its mobility within the country," said Ramírez de la O. "This includes tariffs, non-tariff foreign trade barriers and other requirements for its entry and national circulation." He had previously said that if the plan adequately decreases inflation, the SHCP will focus on increasing the country's minimum wage, as reported by MBN. 

However, CCE warns that opening imports without sanitary controls or regulations could eventually lead to unnecessary risks for food products in Mexico. The anti-inflationary plan could put at risk the health of Mexican consumers and affect “the exports that are registered in international treaties signed by the Government of Mexico,” reads CCE’s press release. For those reasons, “the CCE is working with the tax authorities to find options that avoid affectations to the health and the economy of the agri-food sector, while fulfilling the purpose of PACIC, which is to support the economy of Mexican families, by reducing increases to the basic basket.” 

The Business Coordinating Council is the most influential representative body of Mexico’s private sector. It brings over 2,000 associations and around 80 percent of Mexico's GDP.