In anti-inflationary plan, voluntary adhesion of the IP: López Obrador

Alonso Urrutia, Jared Laureles and Emir Olivares

Newspaper La Jornada
Friday April 29, 2022, p. 13

Before businessmen and union representatives gathered at the 125th Infonavit assembly, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asserted that the imminent anti-inflationary plan will not be an imposition nor will prices be set.

The project, he pointed out, involves the voluntary adherence of the business sector, which will collaborate to prevent the deterioration of the purchasing power of wages.

The president specified that a basic basket of food at fair prices will be guaranteed so that people do not suffer and have access to the essentials.

It is not an imposition, nothing by force, everything for reason and right, convincing, persuading and we have the support of the workers and the business sector. Right Francis?the president asked the president of the Business Coordinating Council (CCE), Francisco Cervantes, who has always supported us. And here I want to acknowledge the support of Mario Macías Robles, from Coparmex.

In the Patio de Honor of the National Palace, where the ceremony was held yesterday, he emphasized that it will be a concerted plan between the public and private sectors. We are not going to put prices on products, there will be no price control. We are going to reach an agreement, it is very advanced, with the producers and with the merchants.

He recalled that in previous years there was resistance from the business sector to the granting of salary increases, but that no longer happens because there is awareness of collaborating in the increases in workers’ income, so in this administration the recovery of 70 percent was achieved. of the purchasing power of workers in real terms.

On the other hand, López Obrador called for taking care of the resources that employees have in their Infonavit accounts. It is the heritage of the efforts of millions of workers. These funds should not be put at risk, because there is always the temptation to use them supposedly to promote development, to create more well-being and progress. That is very good in speech, but in fact we have to take care of those funds. That is the future of families.

Shortly before, the business community asked to be taken into account in the dialogue on the plan against inflation, which the President will present on Wednesday of next week.

José Medina Mora Icaza, president of the Employers’ Confederation of the Mexican Republic (Coparmex), assured: We are not afraid of thinking differently, on the contrary, thinking differently helps to enrich the proposals and that is what we have to dohe indicated during the act headed by López Obrador.

In his turn, the director of Infonavit, Carlos Martínez Velázquez, assured that five decades after its foundation, the institute has achieved do more with less, despite internal and external resistanceand even with the austerity measures, he saved 2.3 billion pesos in the first year of the administration.

In real terms, he said, in the last three years we have reduced operating expenses by more than 20 percent. He highlighted that, in its history, the institute has granted more than 12 million loans for housing.