Will Mexico's Ruling Party End Pemex Monopoly? Nacha Cattan - Associated Press
go to original March 2, 2013

Mexico’s ruling party took the first step this weekend to back President Enrique Pena Nieto’s plan to end a 75-year-old state monopoly on the oil industry.

The president’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as PRI, voted today at its national assembly to end its opposition to constitutional changes that would ease state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos’s grip on the oil industry. Pena Nieto hasn’t yet presented a bill proposing the changes and would still have to win the votes in Congress, where his coalition controls 241 of 500 seats in the lower house.

Oil output in the world’s ninth-largest producer of crude has fallen for eight years as Pemex finances a third of the government’s public budget. Opening the industry to foreign investors would boost production while lifting economic growth by as much as 2 percentage points each year, according to the Energy Ministry.

“Our party is transforming itself in order to represent and better serve all Mexicans,” Pena Nieto said at his party’s assembly. “The PRI, without falling into complacency, has opted to examine itself and redefine its position to adapt to the nation’s new circumstances.”

The PRI also ended a ban that prohibited its members from voting for taxes on food and medicine. The changes were approved at the party’s national assembly.

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