Mexico, Canada Agree to Help Advance Tourism

Canada’s Desjardin International Development (DID) has just inked an agreement with the National Tourism Development Fund of Mexico (FONATUR) to assess the feasibility of setting up a financial institution that could support the advance of tourism in Baja California.

DID –an affiliate of Quebec’s Desjardins Cooperative Movement Fund- will weigh the possibility of creating a financial institution aimed at bankrolling mom-and-pop businesses and local producers in the Mar de Cortes Tourism Project of Mexico’s Baja California.

The accord was signed within the framework of Mexican President Vicente Fox’s recent visit to Canada.

Local newspaper Le Devoir de Montreal explained the purpose of the agreement is to appraise the convenience of setting up financial firms, like the ones currently operating in Quebec, given the fact that President Fox has been aware of the Desjardins Movement since he was Governor of the state of Guanajuato.

At a cost of $1.3 billion, the Mar de Cortes Project will stretch out for the next two decades. The DID feasibility study, for its part, will be financially backed up by the Mexican and Canadian governments, the World Bank and state authorities in Quebec.