U.S. firms' security concerns grow in Mexico: poll

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - U.S. companies in Mexico are increasingly worried about security and many are reconsidering future investments as drug war killings spiral out of control, a poll showed on Thursday.

The American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico, which represents the bulk of foreign direct investment in the country, said 58 percent of its members felt less safe in 2009 than they did a year earlier.

Twenty-seven percent were reconsidering investments in Mexico due to security concerns, according to a poll of the American Chamber's members.

Drug violence has killed nearly 19,000 people across Mexico since President Felipe Calderon took office in late 2006 and launched an army assault on powerful trafficking gangs.

"Clients do not want to come to our country because they are afraid. They ask if they need bodyguards," Raul Gutierrez, president of Mexico's steelmaker association Canacero, told reporters at a steel industry event.

Calderon has deployed tens of thousands of troops and elite police to fight drug gangs, but shootings and grenade attacks have become common, especially near the northern border with the United States, which is dotted with foreign-owned factories.

Companies cite kidnappings and extortion as other risks.

Mexico, which has Latin America's second-biggest economy, is a top U.S. trading partner and sends about 80 percent of its exports to the United States.

Visiting Mexico this week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged to help broaden the drug war with programs to tackle the poverty and addiction that fuel the narcotics trade.

"We are certain that this combined effort (between the United States and Mexico) will bear fruit and it will help improve the security climate here," said Thomas Gillen, head of the American Chamber's security committee in Mexico.

Still, 39 percent of executives think improvements in security will take more than five years, up from 22 percent in the poll conducted a year earlier.

The American Chamber conducted its latest poll between November 15, 2009 and January 15, 2010.

Mexican foreign direct investment plunged 51 percent last year to $11.4 billion, hurt by the worldwide recession.

2(Additional reporting by Mica Rosenberg; editing by Jason Lange and Paul Simao)