Mexico Economic Growth 2019

agosto 1, 2019

Mexico's economy grew 0.1% in the second quarter of the year, driven by a slight advance in the services sector and despite the poor performance of the industry and the extractive activities, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography reported on Wednesday, July 31.

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Although experts said the country would fall into a technical recession, the preliminary GDP figure improved. The recession phase indicated that the economy had problems to grow and that there was a contraction or a decline during two consecutive periods, but with the data given that same Wednesday morning, Mexico technically didn’t fall into regression.

The head of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, Arturo Herrera Gutiérrez, said that, although the country is not in a technical recession, as analysts anticipated, "there is an economic slowdown", and to reverse this behavior the government promotes support measures to economic activity However, it will be in August when a more complete update of the indicator is published.

Unfortunately, there are still services and activities, such as the secondary, or industrial, which registered a 1.6% drop in the second quarter of 2019.

The industrial sector also shows the worst performance, registering a fall of 1.8%, while the primary sector and services reached advances of 3.6 and 1%, respectively, with seasonally adjusted figures.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador has promised an average annual growth of 4% during his tenure and sustains a GDP growth of 2% for this year. In his press conference he expressed the following:

"We are very happy because the Mexican economy is responding ... This are very good news for the people of Mexico."

The president gave other elements that would demonstrate that Mexico is on the right track, among which he highlighted:

• Increase in popular consumption.
• Increase of real income.
• Strengthening of the peso against the dollar.
• Inflation downwards.
• Opportunities in the labor field.

In the latter, he stressed that with the “Youth Building the Future” program 900,000 jobs have been granted and with “Sowing Life” more than 200,000.

Prepared by CAINTRA, with information from El Economista, Publimetro, El Financiero and Animal Político.