Ford will forge ahead with shifting small-car production to Mexico despite repeated criticism from president-elect Donald Trump, who has warned that companies face consequences for leaving the US.

Ford’s plan to rehouse output of the Focus compact car from Michigan to a new $US1.6 billion ($2.1bn) plant being built in ­Mexico, which isn’t expected to result in job losses, remains on track for 2018, chief executive Mark Fields said.

“We have made the decision to move the Focus out, and we’re making that investment now,” Mr Fields said. “When you look at moving the Focus out of our Mich­igan assembly plant, that’s to make room for new products — zero jobs affected, zero jobs impacted.”

The Dearborn, Michigan, carmaker is expected to replace the cars headed to Mexico with more-profitable utility trucks and sports-utility vehicles to keep the Michigan plant humming amid soaring demand for such vehicles. Unionised autoworkers would keep their jobs and potentially receive larger profit-sharing cheques should Ford’s operating profits in North America increase. Mr Field’s remarks came a day after Mr Trump took credit for United Technologies’s decision to keep open a Carrier Corporation furnace factory in Indiana and prevent about 800 jobs from moving to Mexico. In exchange, United Technologies, Carrier’s parent, will receive $US7 million in tax breaks over the next decade.

“This isn’t a Carrier situation,” Mr Fields said of Ford’s plan. He said Ford decided to produce the car in Mexico partly to keep the vehicle’s price in line with customer expectations. “In our business, it’s a long-lead investment,” he said of the Focus plan.

He added that Ford’s US investment commitments remain “as strong as ever”, pointing to the company’s commitment to invest $US9bn in its US plants over the next three years as part of a new ­labour contract struck last year with the United Auto Workers union. The investment would support or create 8500 blue-collar jobs at Ford’s US plants.

Vice-president-elect Mike Pence, currently Indiana’s governor, helped broker the Carrier deal. Carrier still plans to move 600 jobs from the factory to ­Mexico, and United Technologies intends to proceed with closing a separate plant in Huntington, Indiana, moving another 700 jobs across the southern US border.

Mr Trump has said companies going forward would no longer “leave the US anymore without consequences”. He has threatened to slap Ford and other manufacturers with a 35 per cent tariff for importing goods from countries with lower labour costs. The pledge resonated with blue-collar workers, helping Mr Trump win close election battles in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, the three decisive states that propelled him to the White House.

Mr Fields said Ford would weigh future Trump administration policies when pursuing business matters. He said Mr Trump had “an influence” on the carmaker’s decision not to move production of a Lincoln SUV from Louisville, Kentucky, to Mexico. “We had been looking at it,” Mr Fields said, adding that it “made sense” to keep the vehicle in Kentucky, given Mr Trump’s positions on tax reform and infrastructure spending.

Ford never intended to close the factory or cut jobs, but rather ramp up production of another hot-selling SUV, rendering it a largely symbolic move. Mr Trump two weeks ago took credit on ­Twitter for Ford’s decision, but overstated the move, suggesting Ford would no longer relocate the factory to Mexico.

LONDON- BP PLC plans to press ahead with a major deep water project in the Gulf of Mexico—the latest evidence oil companies are tentatively wading back into big-ticket projects amid signs a two-year crude-market slump is ending.

The project to expand production from the Mad Dog oil field off the coast of Louisiana has faced years of delays. BP and its partners struggled to bring down costs, contending first with high industry inflation in the boom years before 2014, and then with a catastrophic slump in oil prices.

The oil giant said it had reduced the cost of Mad Dog phase 2—as the project is known—to $9 billion, compared with $20 billion in 2013. Oil companies such as Royal Dutch Shell PLC have said recently they have successfully cut back to make even historically expensive deep water projects work at lower oil prices.

“Some people say that deep water is finished,” BP’s head of exploration and production Bernard Looney said in a presentation this summer. “We have a very different view.”

The decision to move ahead with Mad Dog phase 2 came a day after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said its members would curb oil output. Crude prices have soared over 14% since the deal, with Brent crude, the international benchmark, hitting $54.50 in London trading Thursday afternoon.

The OPEC deal has added fresh confidence to an industry that has tentatively begun to invest again, signaling a gradual recovery after companies slashed their budgets in response to low oil prices.

Oil companies had cut $1 trillion from their planned global spending on exploration and production for the period between 2015 and 2020 in response to the price slump, according to a June report by Edinburgh-based consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

The project also comes as BP embarks on a plan to raise its production of oil and gas by 800,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day over the next four years.

The second phase of Mad Dog would add the capacity to pump an extra 140,000 barrels a day to a project currently producing about 80,000 barrels a day of oil and about 60 million gross cubic feet of natural gas. The project involves installing a floating production facility about six miles from the existing platform.

The project is expected to begin production in late 2021, but it still needs approval from BP’s partners, BHP Billiton Ltd. and Chevron Corp. unit Union Oil Company of California.

Chevron spokeswoman Brenda Cosola said the company is reviewing the plans for the project and will announce its decision “at an appropriate time.”

BHP Billiton declined to comment. The company has previously said it expects to make a final investment decision in the first quarter of 2017.

MEXICO CITY (AP) ” Mexico’s central bank decided Thursday to raise its interbank interest rate by one-half percent to 5.25 percent, citing “a more complex world economic panorama, caused among other things by the U.S. elections.”

The decision was the second time in as many months the Bank of Mexico has raised the rate.

In September, it raised the rate a half-point to 4.75 percent, seeking to shore up a weak peso.

The volatile peso has depreciated significantly against the U.S. dollar.

Some analysts had been expecting a larger increase, given uncertainty surrounding the U.S. presidential election of Donald Trump.

Trump has pledged to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, deport millions of migrants and build a border wall.

The peso’s interbank exchange rate weakened from 20.34 to $1 to 20.41.

Financial consulting firm Banco Base said Thursday it is unlikely that the peso stabilizes in coming days due to expected changes un U.S. monetary policy and uncertainty about the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump.

Ford won’t be changing its plan to move small-car production from the U.S. to Mexico, despite Donald Trump winning the 2016 presidential election.

Speaking to the FOX Business Network on Tuesday, Ford CEO Mark Fields doubled down on the strategy, even though Trump, while on the campaign trail, said he would put a 35% tax on the company’s vehicles made in Mexico and sold in the United States.

“We’re just implementing our business plan,” Fields said. “And just like we’re making investments in Mexico and moving our focus down there, our plans haven’t changed to introduce two very important products into the plant that the focus is moving out of.”

The decision by Ford, one of the “Big Three” automakers in the U.S., will have “zero impact” on jobs, according to Fields.

On Feb. 15, ANA will begin daily direct service between Tokyo’s Narita Airport and Mexico City, the only daily direct flight between Japan and Mexico. ANA added the flight in response to a growing economic link between the two countries, especially through the automotive industry. In the five years after 2010, Japanese direct investment in Mexico has increased 2.7 times, and the number of Japanese companies establishing operations in Mexico doubled, according to ANA.

MONTREAL — TransForce’s US$558-million acquisition of U.S. company Con-Way Truckload will make it easier for Canadian firms looking to ship goods to Mexico, CEO Alain Bedard says.

TransForce’s Transport America subsidiary did at least US$30 million of annual business shipping goods between the U.S. and Mexico, but almost nothing between Canada and Mexico.
The Con-Way deal will see the company’s U.S.-Mexico business grow to about US$200 million and give TransForce a network of more than 50 local partners across the U.S. southern border.
“I think we’re going to be the carrier with size and connection,” Bedard said in an interview Friday. “When you do 50,000 loads a year in and out of Mexico, you are somebody.”
Con-Way currently doesn’t serve Canada but its addition to TransForce will provide Canadian customers with access to employees who speak English and Spanish and are experienced in transborder shipping.
Bedard sees the partnership being advantageous to manufacturers in Ontario and Quebec and sectors like the automotive industry, which have operations in Canada and Mexico.
He anticipates cross-border trade with Mexico will continue to grow even if Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has vowed to build a wall and rip up NAFTA, wins the presidential election.
U.S. goods and services trade with Mexico was an estimated US$583.6 billion last year, while Canada did $37.8 billion of two-way trade with its third-largest trading partner, according to government statistics.

Several large Canadian companies, including Bombardier (TSX:BBD.B) and its offshoot, recreational vehicle maker BRP Inc. (TSX:DOO), have developed sizable operations in Mexico.
“The Mexicans are building products that are good at a better price than we can do in Canada or in the U.S. so trade is trade,” Bedard said when asked if a Trump election Nov. 8 would be a risk for the acquisition.
In addition to the Mexican connection, the purchase of Con-Way helps TransForce increase its U.S. revenues and gain critical mass for its American truckload business, he said.
The acquired business is expected to generate about US$530 million in annual revenue and boost TransForce’s U.S. truckload revenue to about US$850 million.
Overall, the United States will now account for half of TransForce’s total revenues of around $4 billion.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. says the Mexican peso could gain back most of this years’ losses against the dollar if Hillary Clinton wins the U.S. election. But if Trump becomes the next president, it’ll more than double its losses.

The peso is the second-worst performer among emerging markets this year after Argentina’s currency, falling 11 percent as global sentiment toward developing nations soured. It hit a record low this week before recovering after democratic candidate Hillary Clinton was perceived to be the winner in the first televised debate. The peso edged higher Thursday, trading at 19.3674 per dollar at 1:37 p.m. in New York, reversing losses after the central bank raised the benchmark interest rate half a percentage point to 4.75 percent.
The U.S. is by far Mexico’s biggest export market, buying more than 10 times as much from Mexico last year as the second-largest, Canada. If he wins, Trump has promised to rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement, which governs commerce between the countries and has helped transform the Mexican economy in the last two decades.
“A significant part of Mexican peso underperformance cannot be attributed to global macro factors and likely reflects a ‘U.S. elections premium,’” the New-York based bank said in a note to clients by analysts Mark Ozerov and Kamakshya Trivedi. Were Clinton to win, the peso could potentially gain 9 percent to 10 percent as that premium is removed.
In case Trump wins, the peso would lose as much as an additional 20 percent to near 24 pesos per dollar, the note says.
“It could be smaller if there is a potential shift of Mr. Trump’s rhetoric away from renegotiating trade agreements” or if a rapid depreciation prompts action by the Mexican central bank through more aggressive rate hikes.

The peso recovered from losses of about 0.5 percent after the central bank boosted the lending rate for the third time this year on concern the peso’s tumble may fuel inflation and threaten to roil the nation’s financial markets. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg before the decision had never been so divided, with 12 expecting no change and 15 others forecasting increases of 0.25 percentage point to as much as 0.75 percentage point.
Thursday’s increase “isn’t going to stop it depreciating if Trump pushes ahead in the polls,” said Chris Lawrence, a rates and currency strategist at Rabobank NA in New York. “And if Trump wins this election, the currency will depreciate meaningfully and the central bank will have less firepower to combat it.”
One-week implied volatility on the peso, a gauge of traders’ expectations for price swings, has climbed to the highest in the world. Net short positions on the peso jumped to a record in the week ending Sept. 20, according to the most recent data from the Washington-based Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The peso’s real effective exchange rate — its trade-weighted value versus a basket of other major currencies, adjusted for inflation — shows it’s undervalued compared with historical norms. The measure fell to the lowest since 2009 on Monday, according to a Barclays index, and is 16 percent below its 10-year average.
Miguel Benedetty, a currency analyst at INTL FCStone Ltd., said the minutes from the bank’s meeting to be released on Oct. 13 will be a key indicator for the peso. He’ll be looking to see whether policy makers talk up the possibility of higher interest rates or intervening in the market, or are more sanguine about risks for the peso.
“If the minutes are hawkish, the peso could move past 19 per dollar,” he said. “But if the market thinks it lacks the hawkish tone, it could move back to record weak levels around 20.”

US companies with maquiladora operations in Mexico will be able to avoid double taxation by entering into a unilateral advance pricing agreement (APA) with Mexico’s tax agency, the Servicio de Administración Tributaria (SAT), the US’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced.

The IRS’s position comes as a result of two years of negotiations between the US and Mexican competent authorities to address a backlog of approximately 700 pending APA requests from the maquiladora industry. Maquiladoras, mostly located along Mexico’s border with the United States, manufacture goods for export, typically under a contract manufacturing arrangement with a foreign multinational.

The new agreement between the countries updates and expands on a 1999 agreement, which governed transfer pricing and other aspects of maquiladoras owned by US multinational corporations. Under the new agreement, the two countries are implementing a transfer-pricing framework that both countries have agreed will produce arm’s-length results. It allows qualifying taxpayers with pending unilateral APA requests to elect to apply the new framework, and the IRS will treat the transfer-pricing results as arm’s-length under Sec. 482 of the Internal Revenue Code.

Taxpayers that elect not to apply the new framework may apply the safe harbours provided for in the 1999 agreement or request a bilateral APA from the Mexican and US competent authorities under the provisions of IRS Rev. Proc. 2015-41.

The SAT is expected to release details of how to make the election and the steps taxpayers must take regarding pending unilateral APA requests shortly. The IRS also said it will release future guidance on the tax consequences of the unilateral APAs.

Citigroup Inc (C.N) is investing another $1 billion in its Mexican bank and renaming it Citibanamex in the strongest signal from management that the business is worth keeping for the long run.

New York-based Citigroup said on Tuesday that the investments will be completed by 2020 and will improve digital tools, ATMs and branches.

The new funds come in addition to Citi’s 2014 commitment to invest $1.5 billion in the business, formerly known as Banco Nacional De México, or Banamex.

“These investments in Citibanamex reaffirm our commitment to Mexico and our confidence in its prospects,” Citigroup CEO Mike Corbat said in the announcement.

Corbat’s decision is a rebuttal to calls by some investors and stock analysts for Citigroup to consider selling Banamex. Some large Citigroup investors have privately questioned the wisdom of keeping Banamex after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has roused sentiment for restrictions on trade and travel with Mexico that could hurt the economy there.

Banamex contributes about 15 percent of Citigroup’s global consumer revenue, which makes Mexico second only to the United States in importance. It also earns about 15 percent return on shareholder equity, significantly better than Corbat’s goal of at least 10 percent for the whole bank.

Citigroup said the investments will be directed to five areas: digital banking, information technology, branches and ATMs. It will add 2,500 new ATMs to the 7,500 it has now.

The bank has more branch offices in Mexico than in any other country, with 1,500, compared with 700 locations in the U.S.

Citigroup shares were up 2.4 percent at $48.17 in early afternoon trading.

Corbat has made allegiance to Banamex a hallmark of this four-year tenure as chief executive.

In 2014 he went to Mexico City to pledge support for the unit to the president of the country. He also oversaw executive changes and new controls following the discovery of more than $500 million of fraudulent loans to an oilfield services company.

Mike Mayo, an analyst at CLSA who has long urged Citigroup to sell Mexico, said a sale is now off the table, at least for the short-term.

The new investment will add value, Mayo said. “The question is whether a sale and redeployment of the proceeds into stock buybacks and having a more simple structure would be even better,” he said.

Cisco Systems (CSCO) plans to spend as much as $4 billion in Mexico through 2018 to expand production, creating jobs in the country even as the American company cuts its global workforce by 7%.

The spending will lead to the 270 new direct jobs and 77 related positions, according to a statement from the Mexican government Tuesday. The biggest maker of equipment that runs the internet plans to upgrade its factories and increase production through contract manufacturers, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News. The investment figure includes some spending that had already been planned.

The plan aids Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto as he seeks to show his economic reforms are attracting more investment. The timing could be delicate for Cisco, coming just after the U.S. presidential debate this week in which Republican candidate Donald Trump threatened to increase taxes on companies that move jobs to Mexico and other countries.

Cisco, based in San Jose, Calif., announced about 5,500 job cuts six weeks ago, without saying which countries would lose positions. Savings from the job reductions will be invested in newer businesses that Cisco expects to fuel sales growth, such as cloud computing and connected services, the company said.

Including the new jobs, the spending plan will affect 4,830 direct employees in Mexico, the government said. The expansion enables the manufacturing in Mexico of products including routers, servers and video-conferencing screens.

“These facilities are expected to supply products to more than 110 countries, and directly complement our manufacturing efforts in the U.S. and around the world,” Cisco Chief Executive Chuck Robbins said in a blog post Tuesday after meeting with Pena Nieto. “Mexico is rapidly becoming one of Latin America’s economic success stories.”

Cisco started operations in Mexico in 1993 and now has more than 1,000 employees there, Robbins said.

The Cisco plan is one of the first major investment announcements by a U.S. company in Mexico since April, when Ford Motor (F) said it would spend $1.6 billion on a new small-car factory in Mexico, drawing a rebuke from Trump. It’s one of the top five spending announcements since Pena Nieto became president in 2012.

Ford has begun fighting back against Trump’s accusations and took to Twitter during the presidential debate to rebut the Republican candidate’s assertion the company is cutting U.S. employees to move work to Mexico. The second-largest U.S. carmaker tweeted it “has more hourly employees and produces more vehicles in the U.S. than any other automaker.” Earlier this month, Ford Chief Executive Mark Fields went on CNN to say the company is “absolutely not” cutting U.S. jobs.

In June of last year, AT&T (T) said it would invest about $3 billion to extend mobile internet service to Mexico in addition to spending $4.4 billion earlier in the year to acquire Iusacell and Nextel Mexico.