Mexican government rejects "alarmist" outlook from Carlos Slim

Feb 10, 2009, 16:32 GMT

Mexico City - Mexican Labour Minister Javier Lozano rejected Tuesday the 'alarmist' outlook of Mexican telecommunications tycoon Carlos Slim, who has warned of impending economic doom for the country.

'It frankly alarmed me to see the way that he goes about his outlook,' the fuming minister said in an interview with Mexican television channel Televisa.

Lozano and Slim both atteended the same 'Mexico before the crisis' forum on Monday that was sponsored by Mexican legislators.

At the conference, Slim said the global economic and financial crisis was headed toward causing in Mexico a collapse of GDP to levels unknown since the 1930s, complete with the closing of many firms and shops.

'It will be a very delicate situation. I do not want to be alarmist, but we have to get ready to look ahead and not look at the consequences afterwards and cry,' Slim said.

'Small, medium and large firms are going to go bankrupt, shops are going to close, (there will be) closed premises everywhere, empty buildings,' said Slim, 69, estimated to be the world's second-richest man after US investor Warren Buffett.

Slim 'must clearly be conscious that his is not just like every other statement or every other outlook, that it can really have an impact on investment, on employment and on people's mood,' Lozano countered.

'For him to say that we are going to have the worst unemployment of the last 80 years, for the most powerful man we have in this country to say that, and for him to say that he is not being alarmist ... well, he is hiding it very well,' the minister complained.

Lozano said comments of this type went beyond the projections of international organizations and of Mexico's central bank and only contribute to pushing away investment and causing unrest.

'I never heard what was going to be his own contribution' to solving the problem, the minister complained.

'By the way, this model that he criticizes today is precisely what has allowed him to be the second-richest man in the world,' Lozano said.