Partial forgiveness of fees and fines become part of Buen Fin promotion

Buen Fin discounts are returning mid-November. Photo: File

Buen Fin, the annual discount promotion that’s meant to stimulate early holiday shopping, will apply to more than stuff in your shopping cart this year.

Half-off discounts for fines and surcharges levied by the state Fiscal Administration Agency part of Buen Fin 2018, said agency director Juan Carlos Rosel Flores.

Taxpayers will be partially forgiven on the instructions of Yucatán Gov. Mauricio Vila Dosal starting Friday, Nov. 16 until Nov. 19, the duration of the nationwide program, which started in 2011. It’s comparable to the United States’ “Black Friday,” the day after American Thanksgiving considered the kickoff for the Christmas shopping season.

Buen Fin is mainly a promotion for mainline brick-and-mortar shops, which often extend their hours while holding the sales. Shoppers travel to Mérida from hundreds of miles around to take advantage of the promotions.

Extending it to state bureaucracy aims to “contribute to the stability and social peace of our state,” said Rosel Flores.

Municipal, state and federal workers will receive 25 percent of their Christmas bonuses in time to spend it on Buen Fin sales.

Organizers expect the program to grow 5 percent compared to last year despite the fact that the Bank of Mexico reported that consumer confidence fell in the last two months.

“The (economic) indicators look good, we’ve been growing for 34 consecutive quarters,” said Mexico Finance Minister Jose Antonio Gonzalez Anaya.

Nationally, El Buen Fin 2018 will seek to sell 97 billion pesos in goods and services. Electronics are the most popular purchase.

Some 60,000 businesses are going to take part in the campaign this year.

“There is good enthusiasm because Mexico has economic stability, it has stable variables and there is greater certainty that we can build toward the future,” said Juan Pablo Castanon, president of the Business Coordinating Council (CCE).

Castanon, who was a member of a group of advisors during the negotiations to upgrade the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), said now is the time to encourage the development of the domestic market.

“El Buen Fin” was created with the objective to move company inventories and strengthen the domestic market as a way to drive the economy, said economic minister and chief NAFTA negotiator Ildefonso Guajardo.

“It has become good public policy and the agreement of collaboration (with the businesses) allows us to provide a certain level of certainty for the next decade,” Guajardo said.

Mexico’s economy, the second largest in Latin America after Brazil, could grow 2-2.6 percent this year, according to forecasts by the Central Bank of Mexico (Banxico). In 2017, Mexico’s GDP grew 2 percent.

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