Mexico City Distributes Free Vouchers for Public Markets

ByAlejandro Cruz

This article by Alejandro Cruz originally appeared in the December 9, 2025 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Mexico City’s head of government Clara Brugada, handed out vouchers for the Mercomuna program, to be exchanged for food at small neighborhood businesses and public markets.

With this, she stressed, not only does the population that needs it most benefit, but also the local economy, small merchants, in whose strategy 30,000 entrepreneurs have registered, in addition to strengthening the capital’s supply centers.

“We want to strengthen the grassroots economy and the people. And that’s why we saw it as very important that this support could be democratized in the city,” the official explained.

In this way, she explained, the budget of 900 million pesos allocated to this strategy does not remain in a commercial franchise or large shopping centers, but is distributed among businesses, neighborhood stores, and their own neighbors.

She added that merchants don’t have to pay anything to register with Mercomuna, and all they have to do is call Locatel. The head of the local government noted that there are currently 300,000 beneficiaries receiving Mercomuna vouchers worth 2,000 pesos in a single payment, but that next year they expect to double this number of people and increase the financial support to 3,000 pesos.

“It’s almost a local currency. And thousands of transactions are made for food, with their Mercomuna voucher, which guarantees food for their family,” he said.