Lawmakers face new challenges

Monday, 20 January 2014 00:10 
BY YVONNE REYES CAMPOS
The News


MEXICO CITY – The upcoming period of ordinary legislative sessions will be a chance to extend opportunities for development and accelerate reform in Mexico, according to Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) leader in the Chamber of Deputies Manlio Fabio Beltrones.

Beltrones laid out his party’s goals for the upcoming parliamentary session, which will begin on Feb. 1.

“We will work to strengthen the national economy through the promotion of productivity, competition and jobs, basing this in the consolidation of the constitutional reforms that deal with economic issues,” Beltrones Rivera said.

Last year, reforms were passed in Mexico’s telecommunications, energy, electoral, education and banking sectors. Secondary laws governing their implementation have yet to be enacted. Defining these secondary laws will be the main legislative challenge for lawmakers this year.

Beltrones said that the country will strengthen the economy by taking advantage of productive investments that the approved reforms have made possible.

He added that his legislative group will also work to regain the confidence of the people, the social sector and the productive sector through the justice system. The framework of human rights and public liberties will also be strengthened, he said, and that changes to economic, penal and political frameworks will go to benefit the wellbeing of the population.

He said that the PRI will work to consolidate the Mexican state’s and the electoral bodies’ new institutional framework in the interest of democracy and governance. This is, he said, “is so that we can confide in the upcoming electoral-political reform by the Permanent Committee and so that the president can then approve it, leaving us in a condition to legislate on the corresponding secondary laws.”

Beltrones Rivera said that PRI lawmakers are committed to enhancing the country’s development opportunities and concreting the national transformation project promoted by the federal government in the face of what he called the global scene of profound mutations in economic, technological and social fields, as well as reform processes in countries such as China, India and France.