Mexico: Mexico president suggests Constellation Brands setting up new plant in the south of the country

Mexico�s president said on August 26 that U.S. brewer Constellation Brands should put a planned $1 billion plant in the country�s water-abundant, but poor, south, rather than in the dry northern border city of Mexicali, Brikwire reported.

The project to build the brewery in Mexicali was rejected this year in a public referendum promoted by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and blemished by low voter turnout.

Opponents of the project have said the plant poses a threat to the local water supply.

Lopez Obrador said the federal government would not issue permits to build the plant anywhere in Baja California, the arid state in Mexico�s northwest where Mexicali is located.

�I�ve already spoken with plant�s directors, we agreed that they were going to look for options, but not in Baja California,� said Lopez Obrador at his daily press briefing.

Constellation brews several brands of Mexican beer, including Corona and Pacifico, exclusively for the U.S. market, making the border location attractive from a transport perspective.

Instead, Lopez Obrador urged the company to look for options where water is plentiful, mentioning locations in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Tabasco.

�70% of the country�s water is in the southeast,� said Lopez Obrador, who has made a top priority of developing the country�s impoverished south, including his home state of Tabasco.

His administration is developing several large-scale public projects in the south, including an $8 billion oil refinery in Tabasco and a 1,470-km (913-mile) rail line connecting tourist hot spots in Chiapas to the Yucatan Peninsula along the Caribbean coast.

Constellation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.