Business in brief

Negril water project to end late 2014

Rehabilitation work on the Nonpareil Water Supply System in Negril is scheduled for completion by the end of 2014.

The J$445-million project spearheaded by the National Water Commission entails the installation of new transmission and distribution pipes and storage tanks.

The upgraded facility will improve the water supply to residents of Sheffield, Little London, Nonpareil, Negril, Orange Hill, Mount Airy, Good Hope, and Whitehall in Westmoreland.

Mexico mulls opening oil to private investors

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto is making the most daring gamble yet of his eight-month-old presidency with a proposal to lift a decades-old ban on private companies investing in the state-run oil industry, a cornerstone of Mexico's national pride that's seen production plummet in recent decades.

The reform outlined Monday proposes profit-sharing with private companies. That is currently prohibited by the constitution, which would have to be changed.

The leftist Democratic Revolution Party says it won't support constitutional changes, but Peña Nieto's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party and the conservative National Action Party have enough votes combined to secure the two-thirds majority need in the Senate to pass the reform. They could do the same with the support of a small, allied party in the lower Chamber of Deputies.

The measure then would have to be approved in 17 of the country's 32 state legislatures.