A Mexican lawmaker said her party seeks to soften fuel price increase that begins next month.
Nancy Sánchez, a Mexicali member of the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, said Baja California and Sonora are the first states that will enter the fee open market prices on March 30.
The rest of the country will move on throughout the year in the scheme until all fall under the free market on December, she recalled.
Gas stations will calculate prices based on the international oil price and dollar rate exchange, and will be mandated to provide prices on an hourly basis in an electronic database, according to Mexico’s law.
Sánchez and other colleagues met Wednesday with a federal official in order to discuss the last set of prices the Mexican government will announce on Valentine’s Day.
The lawmaker said the Mexican government can set the last price with a lower increase as the dollar rate has decreased as well as oil prices.
Mexican Energy Regulatory Commission Chair Guillermo García said it is up to Mexico’s Treasury Department to set the new prices.
“We will keep on insisting. The agenda is very clear in this topic and if some variables like dollar rate exchange has no significant climbs, we are sure we can absorb (price increase) through savings and efficiencies in federal expenditures,” she said.
City reports large price increase
The city of Mexicali observed one of the largest price increases nationwide, according to a report released Thursday by Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics or Geography, or INEGI in Spanish.
The Mexican agency released its National Consumer Price Index that leaves the border city in seventh place nationwide with 2.66 percent for the month of January.
Of the top ten cities on the list seven are located in Mexico’s northern border.
Mexicali is followed by Tijuana with a 2.58 percent price increase.
Nationwide, the index observed an increase or 1.70 percent, the largest in the last decade.
The agency set the annual inflation rate at 4.72 percent for January all over Mexico.
Gasoline and gas reported the largest increases on the report with 16.81 and 17.85 percent, respectively.
Homicide suspect arrested
A man who allegedly killed another individual years ago was arrested Wednesay evening, said the Municipal Public Safety Department.
Authorities said at 5 p.m. police officers aprehended Juan Carlos “Doe,” 36, at Camelias Avenue and Del Salto Street at Colonia Bellavista.
The individual had an active arrest warrant for murder, the police said.
The warrant is dated back on 1998.
