1996-09-26 Local Press - ECONOMY
Article Index
ECONOMY
Micro Business Suffering
According to a government study, 48.4% of Mexican micro businesses don't last more than five years, and only 30.8% live more than ten years or become small businesses. In an international comparison, Mexico is qualified as having a very low level of development among its businesses in terms of exports, research, and science and technology, among other areas. (El Financiero, 18 September)
Banks Defend Themselves
The President of the Mexican Banking Association, Jose Madariaga Lomi said that the commercial banks have had to put 60 billion pesos (about $8 billion) into capitalizing their banks in the past 15 months, which is 1.5 times the total paid for the banks when they were privatized for 39.711 billion pesos in 1992. (He neglected to point out that prior to the most recent crisis many banks had already recovered their full investment). Madariaga said that the banks' principal problem is no longer the growing portfolio on non-performing loans, but rather, it is finding a way to make the population "understand" what the banks have done in recent months. (La Jornada, 22 September)