The State must regulate, conduct and promote economic activity

The State must assume an active role in regulating, promoting and conducting economic activity. The statement is made by Altagracia Gómez Sierra, a 32-year-old businesswoman who coordinates an advisory council of the Presidency of the Republic to promote investments. Projects promoted by the public sector should not necessarily be seen through the lens of obtaining financial returns, he points out. Considers that one of the relevant changes of the last decade is the questioning of the concepts of globalization and capitalism itself. The pendulum moved as a result of the failures of certain public policies, he points out. It is in this framework that, she assures, the activity in which the group of business women and men that she heads became involved, at the request of President Claudia Sheinbaum, makes sense.

Gómez Sierra is president of Western Business Promoter (PEO). The consortium has interests in the food industry, with Minsa, producer of just under a third of the corn flour for tortillas in the country. He also owns Dina, a bus and truck manufacturer, and the logistics and financing firm Almer. The first two were once public companies, privatized in the 1990s.

Now, in addition to her activity at the head of PEO, Altagracia Gómez Sierra is the coordinator of the Regional Economic Development and Relocation Advisory Council, made up of 15 businessmen (eight women and seven men). This initiative was presented last week by President Sheinbaum. Among the group’s purposes is to promote investments in the development poles that the current government seeks to promote in different parts of the country, as well as attracting companies to Mexico that wish to approach the North American market from Asia or Europe.

Irreversible integration

The integration of Mexico into the North American region, with the United States and Canada, es irreversiblesays the businesswoman in a talk in which she participated The Day.

The level of integration is something that plays in favor of our economies, it is irreversible and that is something that we certainly have to use and also boast about because Mexico has been part of the success of the trade agreement between the three countries.he points out when asked about his expectations with the new United States government.

The conversation took place the same week that Donald Trump, who will assume the US presidency for a second term on January 20, threatened to impose an additional 25 percent tax on products that the United States buys from Mexico and Canada. Altagracia Gómez considers that Mexico should promote a relationship not only of equals, but of recognition of what it contributes to the most important commercial relationship in the world.

It refers to the value of trade between the two countries. Last year it added 798 billion dollars, an amount that placed Mexico as the United States’ largest partner, above China for the first time in 20 years. On average, goods worth 2,186 million dollars cross the common border every day, around 91 million dollars per hour.

“Companies have a long-term mentality,” says Gómez Sierra. Those who invest in Mexico do not do so solely because of the characteristics of its government, and the same thing happens in the United States and Canada, because investments are not recovered in four or six years,” he says. Today Mexico meets all features for companies to come.

Demographic bonus and change in trend

It lists: 159 thousand engineers graduate in Mexico every year, placing it in sixth place in the world in this field; It is one of the 10 countries with the most graduates annually in careers related to science and technology and, in addition, the average age of its population offers a demographic dividend. enviable. The country is the first exporter of heavy vehicles, the fourth of light vehicles and the sixth of auto parts. It is one of the 17 nations where semiconductors are produced.

It is no accident that we are part of the most prosperous region; is that we have worked for itround up.

Altagracia Gómez talks about the way in which, as a businesswoman and coordinator of the advisory council, she understands the role of the State and in particular the government.

The State plays not only as a regulator. In many industries it is the driverhe assures. And it also has an activity as a buyer that is sometimes underestimated. The State buys many goods and uses many services. Now having the mentality of supporting small and medium-sized businesses is a lever for development. Give an example: All uniforms used in the government, at all levels, can be made in Mexico, where the textile industry has had a significant decline in recent years. And 80 percent of the companies in the sector are microentrepreneurs who we should be supporting.

The public sector must play a very important role in sectors such as energy and other priority sectors, such as tourism. This has been observed in large projects, such as the recovery of Acapulco, devastated by hurricanes. Otis y John, and the consolidation of projects such as the Mayan Train, one of the flagship works of the previous government.

And here it stops: There is a different mentality when an entrepreneur enters a project and when the State, the government, does so. I take for example the Mayan Train. I have seen in some newspapers that they say that it will be paid off in 100, 200 or a thousand years. And if they measure it like that, it will not be paid. But passenger trains are not paid for in the world. They are made at a loss fund for the State. Because what is being sought with this Mayan Train project is well-being, not financial profitability. This project must be measured based on the jobs that were generated in the south of the country. Now the challenge is to make it sustainable in that the generation of well-being does not end with the work, that those who built it do not return to the Bajío, but that they can truly generate roots in the region, that they have a good job, a better life..

He affirms that the State “is not there to appear in Forbes”, but to promote, conduct, facilitate and regulate economic activity. It can coexist with private initiative. President Sheinbaum has spoken a lot about mixed investment, thereby moving away from typical public-private associations, with the problems they represented, since many times they did not become a benefit, but they did become a risk for the State..

In the last decade, he says, the concepts of globalization and capitalism itself changed and that accelerated after the pandemic.

–Until a few years ago the message was the opposite, that the State had to retreat – he is told.

–It’s the pendulum. It is the result of the failures that occur within some public policies that in some aspects were successful. The primary function of the State is public benefit, not financial profitability. Of course, it must be careful, efficient and privilege healthy public finances. But it is a different mentality with which you must enter a project compared to that of an entrepreneur.