MEXICO CITY (AP)--Mexico's economy secretary said Monday he was confident
tortilla prices - which have skyrocketed over the past year because of high
international demand for corn - would stabilize in less than a month.

  Eduardo Sojo said several government departments would monitor corn-tortilla
prices three times a week while officials wait for the market to regulate
prices, which have risen as much as 14% in the past year.

  Sojo announced last week the government had authorized duty-free imports of
650,000 metric tons (716,500 U.S. tons) of corn to drive down tortilla prices.
But he warned that any price relief would not be immediate, with the corn
imports hitting the Mexican market in February.

  "We're going to see how the markets work and we hope that they (prices)
stabilize in the next two or three weeks," Sojo said Monday during a business
convention.

  In addition, the federal government's antitrust watchdog said last week it
was investigating allegations companies were manipulating corn prices, and
making deals to limit the supply of corn to boost tortilla prices.

  But unionists and members of the opposition left-leaning Democratic
Revolution Party, or PRD, said the government should institute price controls
on staple foods including tortillas and milk.

  "It's possible that we will agree to wage a national workers strike or
protest marches throughout the country," Isaias Gonzalez, secretary-general of
the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Farmers, was quoted as saying by
the daily newspaper Reforma on its Web site Monday.

  PRD spokesman Gerardo Fernandez said the party would coordinate national
protests with other social and political groups and that some federal lawmakers
planned to demonstrate in front of the Economy Department's offices on Tuesday.

  For low-income Mexicans, who earn about $18 a day on average, the increasing
prices have hit hard.

  The government eliminated its decades-old subsidy for tortillas in 1999 just
as cheap corn imports were rising from the United States under NAFTA.