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Amcor buys Mexican tobacco packager 

PAPER and packaging group Amcor has paid $US40 million ($38.85 million) for a tobacco packaging plant in Mexico.

The acquisition of the Aluprint plant in Monterrey would give Amcor a presence in Mexico, a large and strategically located tobacco packaging market, the company said.

Amcor also recently purchased a tobacco packaging operation in Argentina.

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Smoking a cigarette and dressed down in slacks: Intimate photos show the private life of artist Frida Kahlo 

Mexico: Tobacco Control Advocates Effectively Counter the Tobacco Industry During Tax Campaign  

The tobacco industry in Mexico historically has a strong presence in influencing the government. In 2009, the tobacco industry successfully blocked a significant tobacco tax increase by lobbying the largest and most influential party in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies at the time, the Partido Revolutionario Institucional (PRI).

Following this public health defeat, tobacco control advocates launched a well-coordinated campaign to promote a tax increase in 2010. Again, the measure was strongly opposed by the tobacco industry, particularly by British American Tobacco (BAT) and Philip Morris International (PMI). Tobacco Industry tactics used to block efforts in 2010 included:

* Issuing statements claiming that an increase in taxes would dramatically increase illicit trade.

* Threatening to close company operations in Mexico. . . .

Strategies

Actions taken to counter tobacco industry interference were fully integrated into a broader tax advocacy campaign which included advocates meeting with legislators; releasing economic reports and other data to inform the public, counter false industry arguments and maintain positive media coverage; conducting public opinion polling to measure public support for the tax increase; partnering with leaders of congressional health commissions on political forums on tax; and publishing an open letter in a leading newspaper endorsed by coalition members and international tobacco control groups.

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Billionaire Boys' Club  

Cigar-smoking Slim is known for a "Midas touch" in acquiring struggling firms and turning them into cash cows . . .

Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim retained his position atop Forbes magazine's annual list of the world's billionaires yesterday with an estimated worth of $69-billion, placing him ahead of Bill Gates at $61-billion and Warren Buffett at $44-billion.

Slim, 72, has taken the top spot for three years in a row, largely based on assets from his telecommunications empire.

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Political advertising in Mexico: From slogans to cigarettes  

Despite the uncompetitive nature of early Mexican politics, candidates still came up with novel ways to promote their campaigns. A new exhibition at the Museo del Objeto del Objeto, or MODO, in Mexico City displays a century’s worth of campaign memorabilia stretching from Mr Fox back to the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz.

Alongside hundreds of metal pin-badges are some unusual finds. Adolfo López Mateos promoted his 1958 candidacy with PRI-themed cigarette lighters. Six years later his successor, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, handed out party-branded cigarettes.

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Scientists find first proof of potent tobacco use among ancient Mayan people  

Capital Region researchers confirmed that one of our bad habits is as old as the ancient Mayan civilization.

Jennifer Loughmiller-Newman of the University at Albany and Dmitri Zagorevski of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute studied scrapings from more than 50 Mayan vessels and found evidence of a potent tobacco in one tiny, 1,300-year-old container.

The discovery represents the oldest physical evidence of tobacco use.

"In a lot of ways it's similar to the consumption of alcohol," Loughmiller-Newman said. "Humans have indulged in stimulants and depressants for many, many centuries. That's a phenomenal continuation of human behavior. We enjoy these little treats in their numerous forms and have for a very long time."

For ancient Mayans, tobacco was a godlike plant that had a soul and wielded the force of lightning and thunder, said Kevin Groark, an anthropologist and Mayan expert. It provided spiritual protection and healing properties, and Mayan shamans used tobacco enemas to invoke powerful visions.

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• Illegal cigarette business takes off in Mexico  

The illegal cigarette business is growing rapidly and now accounts for about 10 percent of the total tobacco market in Mexico, gaining eight percentage points in the past year, the Alliance Against Illegal Products, or ACPI, said.

"More than 100 illegal brands appeared on the market against the 30 detected in 2010," ACPI spokesman Gerardo Velazquez said.

The number of packs of illegal cigarettes sold last year rose to "40 million, against the 200 million estimated by the end of 2011," Velazquez said.

"Overregulation" has had negative effects on the tobacco market in Mexico, which has between 10 million and 11 million smokers, the ACPI spokesman said.

The organization criticized the effects of the Special Tax on Production and Services, or IEPS, which was approved a year ago and raised the price of a pack of cigarettes by 7 pesos ($0.52).

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Research and Markets: Cigarettes in Mexico - Forecasts to 2015 

In 2010 a new excise tax of Mx$0.1 per cigarette of 0.75g came into effect, which led to an Mx$2 increase in the cigarette pack. The legislation demanding the printing of graphic images on cigarette packs also finally came into effect.

The Cigarettes in Mexico report offers a comprehensive guide to the size and shape of the market at a national level. It provides the latest retail sales data 2006-2010, allowing you to identify the sectors driving growth. It identifies the leading companies, the leading brands and offers strategic analysis of key factors influencing the market - be the new legislative, distribution or pricing issues. Forecasts to 2015 illustrate how the market is set to change.

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Research and Markets: Smoking Tobacco in Mexico  

Tradition for RYO and pipe smoking tobacco is even smaller than that for cigars and only a very few people in Mexico consume it. Pipe smokers are seen as people who actually know about tobacco: its characteristics, the process of selecting, mixing and preparing it, the diverse types of pipe etc, so, pipe smokers are considered more educated smokers.

The Smoking Tobacco in Mexico report offers a comprehensive guide to the size and shape of the market at a national level. It provides the latest retail sales data 2006-2010, allowing you to identify the sectors driving growth. It identifies the leading companies, the leading brands and offers strategic analysis of key factors influencing the market - be the new legislative, distribution or pricing issues. Forecasts to 2015 illustrate how the market is set to change.

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Smoking Tobacco in Mexico - Market Report - new market report published 

Tradition for RYO and pipe smoking tobacco is even smaller than that for cigars and only a very few people in Mexico consume it. Pipe smokers are seen as people who actually know about tobacco: its characteristics, the process of selecting, mixing and preparing it, the diverse types of pipe etc, so, pipe smokers are considered more educated smokers. However, since it is a lot harder to inhale the pipe´s smoke, and since the taste tends to more bitter and the smoke denser, most cigarette...

The Smoking Tobacco in Mexico report offers a comprehensive guide to the size and shape of the market at a national level. It provides the latest retail sales data 2006-2010, allowing you to identify the sectors driving growth. It identifies the leading companies, the leading brands and offers strategic analysis of key factors influencing the market - be the new legislative, distribution or pricing issues. Forecasts to 2015 illustrate how the market is set to change.

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World Richest Man Carlos Slim Takes $8 Billion Hit As US Economy Takes Down Mexico Holdings  

The sudden downturn has had a direct effect on Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man, who lost about $8 billion this week."The Mexican billionaire’s stock portfolio, measured in U.S. dollars, has dropped about 11 percent since July 29, before today, and is valued at about $63 billion," according to Bloomberg. That compares with a 7.1 percent slide in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index."

Mexico's peso dropped 2.5 percent against the dollar and the country's Benchmark IPC index fell 7.4 percent.

Slim's Empire

Earlier this week, Slim surprised many by offering to purchase the remaining 40% of Telmex, the cornerstone of his América Móvil (AMX) empire, for $6.5 billion.

The news came as a surprise as it was thought that Slim was keen to grab a foothold on the broadcast market, despite numerous setbacks -- such as the denial of a license from Mexican authorities, apparently keen to keep rival broadcasters on side before presidential elections in 2012. Analysts expected the tender to only come to fruition once its pay-TV permit had been confirmed.

Slim has fallen foul of anti-competition legislation in Venezuela, including a record $1 billion fine for alleged monopolistic practices.

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Cuban cigars tempt U.S. shoppers to Mexico 

Walking through the streets of Mexican border towns like Reynosa or Nuevo Progreso, tourists can find a treat that is not allowed in the United States.

Blowing a cloud of smoke, U.S. tourist Marco Ramirez said he doesn't know much about cigars, but he sure enjoyed having a cold beer and a fat Cohiba Cuban cigar during his visit to Nuevo Progreso.

"This is a nice little vacation," Ramirez said. "I'm having a good time, and I get to try new things."

When asked about the cigar, Ramirez said he had never been attracted to them, but he felt the lure of trying something he can't get back home in Atlanta.

Satisfying that curiosity is the reason Ramon Valles has a few boxes of Cuban cigars in a small wooden cabinet in a little stand on the main street of Nuevo Progreso. The stand also holds serapes, hats and other tourist souvenirs.

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The Monday Interview - World’s richest man stays down to earth 

Over the past three months, his Mexican mobile phone operator Telcel has been fined $1bn for “monopolistic practices”, the government has thwarted his attempts to enter the pay-TV market and rivals have chipped away at his core business.

Yet, despite the pressure from regulators and competitors, the 71-year-old appears remarkably calm when we meet at the head office of Inbursa, his Mexican bank. The room is hung with canvases showing pastoral scenes, a window looks out on to a drab urban landscape, while a bookshelf covering one wall is crowded with Spanish classics, biographies of great financiers such as Bernard Baruch, and a row of dog-eared volumes of baseball statistics, one of his passions.

Yet even as others are trying to shrink his vast wealth, Mr Slim is pondering how to put it to best use when he is gone. “Read this,” he says, pulling out a well-thumbed edition of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, that staple of student spirituality. He points to a line on page 487: “You give but little when you give of your possessions.” . . .

1982 As Mexican banks crumble and suffer nationalisation following a plunge in the oil price and rise in global interest rates, Mr Slim goes on a shopping spree, buying a hotel chain; Reynolds Aluminio, a tyre company; Sanborns, the department store; and a 40 per cent stake in the Mexican subsidiary of British American Tobacco.

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• ENVIRONMENT DAY: Radioactive Oil, Fertilisers and Tobacco  

A total of 2.5 billion packs of cigarettes are smoked every year in this country of 112 million people, where 11 million smokers consume an average of 5.4 cigarettes a day, according to the 2010 report "The Economics of Tobacco and Tobacco Taxation in Mexico" by U.S. and Mexican health experts.

Smoking claims the lives of between 25,000 and 60,000 Mexicans a year.

"The major tobacco manufacturers discovered that polonium was part of tobacco and tobacco smoke more than 40 years ago and attempted, but failed, to remove this radioactive substance from their products," says "Waking a Sleeping Giant: The Tobacco Industry's Response to the Polonium-210 Issue", published by the American Journal of Public Health in September 2008.

The U.S. scientific researchers Monique Muggli, Jon Ebbert, Channing Robertson and Richard Hurt concluded that "Internal tobacco industry documents reveal that the companies suppressed publication of their own internal research to avoid heightening the public's awareness of radioactivity in cigarettes."

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Smoking claims 53,000 lives annually in Mexico 

Smoking claims 53,000 lives annually, or one person every 10 minutes, in Mexico, Health Minister Jose Angel Cordoba said on Tuesday, the World No Tobacco Day.

In Mexico, the average smoker first tries cigarettes at the age of 13, and more than 13 million people smoke.

"Our young people begin smoking at age 13, and they lose 15 years from their healthy lives because smoking contains 40 carcinogenic substances," Cordoba said during a ceremony at the Mexican president's residence.

"Half of smokers will die of a tobacco related illness and will damage all those exposed to second-hand smoke." he said.

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