Alejandro Díaz de León, former governor of the Bank of Mexico, will be the new corporate director of Grupo Bal

Alejandro Díaz de León, the former governor of Banco de México (Banxico), was appointed as Corporate Director of Grupo Bal, headed by businessman Alejandro Baillères Gual, son of founder Alberto Baillères González, who died last February.

In a statement addressed to the group's managers, it was emphasized that “Alejandro's extensive, profound and valuable experience” will contribute to the corporate activities.

“I warmly welcome him and I count on the support of all of you so that Alejandro can fully carry out his new responsibilities and successfully carry out his work as corporate director,” Alejandro Baillères Gua said in the statement.

The text highlighted that Díaz de León was Governor of the Banco de México from December 2017 to December 2021 “a position which he carried out with great responsibility and efficiency, achieving low inflation in monetary policy and also a good functioning of the country's finances in a context of external and internal shocks.”

The statement also highlighted Díaz de León's experience as Director General of the National Foreign Trade Bank (Bancomext), Head of the Public Credit Unit at the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP), among others.

He also detailed Díaz de León's academic background: he studied Economics at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM), obtaining an Honorable Mention and later did a Master's Degree in Public and Private Administration at the Yale School of Management.

It should be recalled that Alejandro Díaz de León was Governor of the Bank of Mexico from December 2017 to December 2021 and was replaced by Victoria Rodríguez Ceja, who was nominated as a member of the Governing Board by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, after the president reported that he would not extend Díaz's term of office in León, as he said, is one of the technicians of the neoliberal period who caused “a lot of damage to the country”.

On May 24, 2021, López Obrador assured that Díaz de León approved a loan for the acquisition of an overpriced fertilizer plant in 2015 (Agronitrogenados) that damaged the finances of Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex).

“Because of that operation, the country today has a debt of 1 billion dollars. If they were good technicians, they would not have carried out those operations. How is that justified?” , he questioned.

He stated that Díaz de León had to sign the agreement, and he pointed out that, had he been a “good, honest” technician, he would have reviewed the purchase or the sales contract “and would have realized that it was a contract contrary to the public interest, that it was a bad operation, and would not have signed,” he said on the morning of that day.

This Thursday, the Banco de México board will announce whether the interest rate will increase, however, during its press conference this morning, Andrés Manuel López Obrador anticipated Banxico's reports and noted that they unanimously decided to increase the interest rate by 50 basis points, which would place it in 6.5%.

“Yesterday, here in Mexico, the Bank of Mexico increased the interest rate .50 (percent). We are going to have an interest rate of 6.5%, because when interest rates rise there is less investment and inflation is supposed to fall. It is a control mechanism,” said López Obrador.

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