The debt-laden firm, one of Mexico’s crown jewels, is struggling to reach agreement with its creditors over $4.1 billion of debt maturing this year.
Reports over the weekend suggested that the government was poised to step in to prop up Cemex. However, Gerardo Rodriguez, deputy undersecretary for public credit, denies that any such action will take place. Instead, he says, the government will act as an intermediary between Cemex and its creditors in the hope that an agreement is soon reached.
“Some reports have said we rescued Cemex – this is a total misrepresentation of the situation,” says Rodriguez. “Cemex is important to the economy, just like [retailer] Comerci and the few other companies that are suffering right now. Our priority is employment and economic growth, which would be affected if these companies were to fail and so the government is trying to do what we can in order to facilitate the dialogue between creditors and companies. We are sitting people around a table and making sure the process of finding credit solutions is moving forward.”
At the Inter-American Development Bank conference in Medellín last week, Mexico’s finance minister, Agustin Carstens, told reporters: “Cemex is advancing well and will be able to satisfactorily deal with its problems.”