CIUDAD JUAREZ, April 1 (Reuters) – The front-runner in
Mexico’s presidential election campaign said on Sunday he would
create tax incentives to revive economic life along the U.S.
border that has been depressed by drug violence.
“To strengthen the market and the export power of Ciudad
Juarez, we need to provide emergency treatment through the tax
system,” Enrique Pena Nieto, favorite to win the July election,
told supporters in this industrial city on the U.S. border.
Roughly 80 percent of Mexican exports are shipped over the
northern border, including cars, electronics and other
appliances assembled in Mexico from components that were shipped
south from the United States and Canada.
The border cities are also a transfer point for illegal
drugs heading for U.S. cities, a traffic that has become so
violent it has hurt local economies.
A grinding effort by Mexico’s outgoing President Felipe
Calderon to curb drug traffickers has meant years of bloodshed
in Ciudad Juarez and all candidates are promising economic
growth and less violence.
Pena Nieto, the opposition Institutional Revolutionary
Party’s (PRI) candidate, is expected to outline more details of
his security plans this week. The candidate did not explain
details of his tax-incentive plan.
Most polls give Pena Nieto a double-digit lead over
Calderon’s National Action Party (PAN) rival Josefina Vazquez
Mota.
(Reporting by Julian Cardona; Editing by Anthony Boadle)
