With historic Indigenous consultation, Heineken ratifies investment in Yucatan
This is the first indigenous consultation organized by a municipality in Mexico and the first one done by a brewery in the world.
KANASIN, YUCATAN.- By fully complying with the consultation process in the communities of Kanasín, Hacienda Teya and San Antonio Tehuitz, the Heineken de México company ratifies its investment of 8.7 billion pesos for the construction of a 133-hectare manufacturing plant in the municipality of Kanasín, announced at an event chaired a year ago by the then Governor Mauricio Vila Dosal.
In this way, 2,500 jobs will be generated, both direct and indirect, in this municipality, its communities, and surrounding areas, in addition to generating value chains by acting as a tractor company that will attract other surrounding companies and demand supplies from local small and medium-sized businesses, according to the head of the Sefoet, Ernesto Herrera Novelo.
On September 13, the process of prior, free, and informed indigenous consultations concluded with the participation of the traditional authorities of each community and its inhabitants, consisting of four stages, which took place from July 10 to August 26 of this year.
The Interinstitutional Committee for Consultation made up of municipal and state authorities and the State Commission for Human Rights (Codhey), was formed on June 20, 2024, after which a phase of prior agreements was carried out, in which the process of consultation, its objectives, scope and forms were made known to the inhabitants.
In the informative stage, the communities learned about the project, location, construction time and impacts, their prevention and mitigation, doubts and requests were resolved, and responsibilities and shared benefits were agreed upon.
In the deliberative phase, each community met without the presence of government or company authorities to decide whether to approve or deny it and finally, in the consultative stage, the citizens expressed their position, which in both cases resulted in approval, giving their consent in a free, prior and informed manner for the operation and construction of the plant.
For this reason, the company is moving forward with the project, which represents an investment of 8.7 billion pesos at the end of all its stages.
It is the first time in Mexico that a municipality has carried out an Indigenous consultation, free, prior, and informed, with the Codhey as the technical body and guarantor of the process, in full respect of the human rights of the communities and the principles that govern this process. Heineken, for its part, sets a precedent worldwide by being the first brewery to carry out this exercise.
It should be noted that the right to this process is enshrined in Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization (ILO), considered the most important international legal instrument concerning indigenous peoples.
In this way, institutionality and legal certainty were provided to both the inhabitants of the Yucatecan communities where the plant will be located, as well as to the investing company, reaching a dialogue and negotiation of responsibility and social benefits unprecedented throughout the country for the execution of a project of this magnitude, highlighted the head of the Sefoet.
Thanks to the policy of attracting investment in strategic sectors for the generation of formal jobs, the 2018-2024 administration, which ends on September 30, closes with 390 projects executed or underway that represent 167 billion pesos of private capital.
Yucatan presents an average annual economic growth of 5.1 percent, with GDP estimates in the last three years (INEGI), which places it as the sixth-largest growing economy in Mexico.
TYT Newsroom
