On 23 April 2018, at the margins of the Hannover Messe, one of the world´s largest trade fairs, the German-Mexican Energy Partnership hold the first meeting of its Business-to-Government (B2G) Energy Council, after its foundations had been laid by BMWi and SENER in December 2017 at a meeting at the Mexican Embassy in Berlin with the adoption of guidelines for the Councils’ establishment. The Council is aiming at involving the business community in the bilateral energy partnership in an open dialogue format to identify and discuss key issues of the energy sector.
The Former Mexican Undersecretary Fernando Zendejas of the Mexican Energy Ministry (SENER) and the German Parliamentary State Secretary Oliver Wittke of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) headed the meeting. Both emphasized the interest to deepen the cooperation between their countries, taking into account the views of the private sector. Among emerging markets, Mexico has been one of the largest recipients of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), with investments of USD 72.4 billion between 2015 and the second quarter of 2017.
Each five private sector representatives from Mexico and Germany attended the meeting as members of the B2G Energy Council. The top management business representatives addressed challenges and opportunities for projects and investments in Mexico as well as the cooperation with Germany in an open dialogue with the high-level government representatives.
Topics that were touched upon were the need for further incentivizing energy efficiency measures, the need for increasing storage capacities in the oil and gas sector, the acceleration of permit procedures for clean energy projects or the reduction of import duties on solar PV modules. Furthermore, transmission tariffs, subsidies for electricity and fossil fuels as well as the implementation and linkage of ETS were discussed.
The same day, the German-Mexican Energy Partnership launched its new investors’ guide “Growing Investment Opportunities: Mexico’s New Energy Era – From Framework Fundamentals to Power Sector Focus”.
Subsequently to the inaugural meeting of the B2G Energy Council, the German-Mexican Energy Partnership held its third High-level Steering Group (HLSG) meeting. Behind closed-doors, and only among governmental and public institutions’ representatives, five focal themes and various activities for the Energy Partnership were confirmed, taking into account recommendations made by the B2G Energy Council’s private sector members. With that, the German-Mexican Energy Partnership has a clear work programme until the next HLSG meeting in 2019.
