López Obrador threatens Slim to withdraw his concession: Grupo Carso has already answered

The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, wants the billionaire Carlos Slim finish a highway project soon otherwise it will be washed away, according to the newspaper El Financiero.

The road is the Jala-Nayarit-Puerto Vallarta with an extension of 183 kilometers.

"He already has a business for over 10 years with the concession to do the highway and is not moving forward"Lopez Obrador said this weekend at an event held in the state of Nayarit, home of the resorts of Punta Mita and Sayulita."I will talk to them. It's finished where they work and they end up or they are removed from the dealership"The company he referred to is Grupo Carso, from Slim.

This comment was the second aimed at the billionaire's company in just a few days, sign of a cooling of the relationship. In another weekend, López Obrador said the telecom companies had failed to connect Internet users from isolated cities to the Internet and that his government was considering establishing a state-owned telecommunications company. América Móvil SAB, of Slim, is the largest telephone company in the country.

The Jala-Compostela highway was originally intended to be built by the National Fund for Infrastructure (FONADIN), a government-led construction trust, Grupo Carso said in a statement. "We received the concession and started work on this section six months ago and it is on schedule according to the project that was granted"The company refused to give more details about the costs or schedule of the project.

The deterioration of the relationship AMLO – Slim

They form a strange duet in Mexico: the world-renowned billionaire and the left-right politician. For years, they participated in projects and welcomed themselves in public.

However, as politician Andrés Manuel López Obrador was preparing for his arrival at the presidential palace at the end of last year, his relationship with billionaire Carlos Slim suddenly changed. Mexico's richest man has not joined the president's business advisory council and AMLO, as the president calls him, has lashed out at one of Slim's companies.

While López Obrador sought to cancel a US $ 13,000 million airport under construction in Mexico City, Slim contacted the president through a personal letter in which he asked him to save the project.according to two people who know the question well. He argued that the airport could be delivered to the private sector and proposed to take over the initiative, said the sources, who asked not to reveal their identity.

Slim's strong support was not a surprise, he publicly defended the project and raised the possibility of privatizing the airport, known as the concession, and in the note he also proposed that the deal include the operations of Toluca. Lopez Obrador, who had just found his winning campaign on the promise of stopping the Mexican business elite, did not like the proposal, said one of the men.

We already know the result: López Obrador organized a public referendum on the airport and then canceled the project. Slim, who has invested heavily through construction contracts and a financing vehicle, received a heavy blow and the rating and response of López Obrador gives an idea of ​​the cooling of an apparently good relationship that goes back almost two decades. Now the president is more intimate with another billionaire, Ricardo Salinas.