Why Mexico’s addicted to business chambers and councils

“We all have very different ways of working,” Altagracia Gómez tells The Mexico Political Economist.

December began with the birth of a brand new member of the Mexican business council ecosystem. It joins the ranks of a small legion of unions, councils, and chambers created to represent the evolving interests of Mexico’s many businesses.

The most recent (and as of yet nameless) council has been created to speed up the rate of private and mixed investments, particularly infrastructure across the strategic sectors laid out by Claudia Sheinbaum’s flagship industrial policy, Plan México, said Altagracia Gómez.

The Mexico Political Economist asked Gómez, who is already head of Sheinbaum’s main business advisory body, what she made of this new council. “We all have very different ways of working,” she replied.

“The idea is to enhance communication between the business sector and the President. Many businesspeople participate in more than one council and the point is to continue working together to reach the goal of 25% of investment as a percentage of GDP by 2026,” Gómez told The Mexico Political Economist.

On the face of it, this makes good sense. Different chambers and councils have different targets and purposes, and as Mexico becomes increasingly desperate for fresh capital influxes, an investment-specific advisory council doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

Yet, other members of Mexico’s business unions and councils that spoke to The Mexico Political Economist were less optimistic.