Presidency of Republic of United Mexican S : Fuel price increase a difficult but necessary decision

During the Nurses' Day celebrations, President Enrique Peña Nieto said that raising the country's gas prices was a difficult measure to adopt.

'Failure to do so would only lead us to jeopardize the stability we have created in recent years, which is the most valuable thing Mexicans have today: conditions of economic stability, which mean that there is employment in our country, low inflation, a gradual recovery of the purchasing power of Mexican families, areas of opportunity for those graduating from our universities and polytechnics, which allows them to find work, and the maintenance and support of the labor force'. EPN

Worldwide gas prices have increased in Mexico and around the world; petrol prices have gone up in every country in the world,' he said.

Spending money on maintaining gasoline prices would have contributed to reducing priority actions and would have meant having to close many of the country's schools, because 200 billion pesos is equivalent to almost half the payroll for kindergarten, elementary and middle school teachers.

We would have had to stop funding programs in the health and education sectors, which are a priority and certainly more of a priority for the government than assigning those resources to maintaining fixed gasoline prices.

Call for Calm

The president urged Mexican society to listen to reason and to understand how difficult it was for the government to make this decision which will, in the end, make it possible to maintain the programs required to benefit those most in need.

'We appeal to the understanding of Mexican society in order, in the end, to protect and preserve all the actions and programs in which the government has invested to ensure minimum welfare conditions for our society': EPN