MEXICO CITY, July 16 (Xinhua) -- Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Tuesday that his government will reduce the tax burden of state oil firm Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) over the next two years.
The measure aims to reinvest Pemex's revenues into the company, said the president and Pemex CEO Octavio Romero at a joint press conference here when revealing the Pemex Business Plan 2019-2023.
Public projects of Mexico's successive governments have heavily relied on Pemex's revenues from oil sales, leaving only a little to reinvest in the firm. In the previous government, Pemex's debt doubled to 2.123 billion pesos (111 million U.S. dollars).
In order to balance the Pemex's budget, the federal government plans to gradually reduce the rate of the company's shared utility tax from the current 65 percent to 54 percent by 2021, said Romero, noting that the measure will lead to a financial surplus for the company by then.
He said that the planned reduction rate for Pemex in 2020 will be 7 percent, equivalent to 3 billion U.S. dollars. In 2021, it will be 4 percent.
The business plan also seeks to raise crude oil production from the current 1.7 million barrels per day (bpd) to about 2.7 million bpd by 2024, when Lopez Obrador's current term ends.
The plan has to be submitted to the Ministry of Finance for incorporation into the 2020 federal budget.