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 Business News | April 2005 
Concerns Ease, Peso Advances
 Thomas Black - Bloomberg News
| | The national currency strengthened as comments by Andrés Manuel López Obrador eased investor concern over violence and upheaval. |
Mexico's peso had its biggest gain in a week on Friday after Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador urged his supporters not to block streets and take government offices to protest congress' decision to have him face criminal charges.
The currency strengthened 0.4 percent as the comments by López Obrador, the frontrunner in polls for 2006 presidential elections, eased investor concern that his backers would carry out violent protests and shut down Mexico City.
Congress' decision Thursday night to strip him of his immunity will lead to his removal from office and may block him from running for president, said Joy Langston, a political studies professor at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching in Mexico City.
"The main concern was civil disorder and, obviously, that hasn't played out," said Clyde Wardle, an emerging market currency strategist with a unit of HSBC Holdings Plc in New York.
The peso advanced to 11.1379 pesos to the dollar at 12:48 p.m. New York time from 11.1825 pesos yesterday. Mexican stocks also rose, with the benchmark index gaining 0.2 percent. The country's bonds fell. The government's 6 5/8 percent bond due in 2015 fell 0.45 cent on the dollar to 103.75, pushing its yield up to 6.11 percent.
Legislators in the lower house of Congress voted 360 to 127 with 2 abstaining to strip López Obrador of immunity as an elected official and face charges on accusations he disobeyed a court order to halt construction of a road beginning in March 2001.
"We have to act with a lot of intelligence and with a lot of determination," López Obrador, who denied any wrongdoing, told a crowd of supporters Thursday. "No violence. No giving in to provocation. This movement is, has been and will be peaceful." |
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