Mexico is the the world’s number one producer of silver and the second largest gold producer in Latin America. The sector faces a complicated security dynamic in states such as Veracruz, Guerrero and Chihuahua and mounting social protests over environmental issues in many parts of the country.
In Guerrero three Goldcorp employees were kidnapped and killed in 2015. In 2014 Grupo Mexico a mining company owned by Mexican billionaire German Larrea dealt with major protests after a massive chemical spill at one of its facilities in Sonora. A recent report from Ernst & Young warns, “access to land [in Mexico] is a particularly convoluted problem, notably in self-proclaimed indigenous communities, given the regime of communal ownership that still prevails in large portions of Mexico.”
While individual projects can face protests from local residents in recent decades Mexico’s federal government has worked to attract foreign investment in mining. Mexico is on track to reach a four year high in foreign direct investment in mining in 2018.
Mining projects have generated significant controversy in many parts of Mexico in recent years. The sector now faces some heightened political risk. Mexico’s president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) has sent some mixed signals regarding his view of the mining sector.
Many analysts still believe that economic development and job creation rank higher on AMLO’s list of priorities than environmental conservation. Imbued with the values of Mexico’s old school left AMLO may be more open to supporting mining projects than most modern progressives in the Americas. To find out what’s ahead of Mexico’s mining sector, I reached out to Craig Dempsey, the CEO of Biz Latin Hub, a Latin America-focused business services consultancy.
For the rest of this article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanielparishflannery/2018/11/09/whats-ahead-for-mexicos-mining-sector/#c532f2d6d26b