Mexico gov't invests 30 bln pesos in rural area since 2006

• Source: Xinhua
• [14:59 July 14 2009]
• Comments

The Mexican government has invested 30 billion pesos (2.19 billion U.S. dollars) in the rural area since the end of 2006, President Felipe Calderon said on Monday.

"I know you have had to face serious problems, some of which are unprecedented," Calderon told a meeting on the livestock industry in the central Mexican city of Aguascalientes.

The president said since he took office in December 2006, the government had spent 12 billion pesos (876 million dollars) on the livestock industry, which benefited 650,000 farmers.

The government has also provided guarantees for 70,000 infrastructure projects in the countryside and spent nearly 3 billion pesos (219 million dollars) in building high-tech slaughterhouses.

As a result, the country's livestock production grew to 18.4 million tons in 2008, up 5 percent from two years before, Calderon said.