First modification:
While the OECD points out that Mexico maintains one of the highest poverty levels in the organization, the IMF raises its economic growth forecast from 2.6% to 3.2% for this year, mainly due to the strength of the private consumption, services, construction and automobile production.
Mexico is one of the countries with the highest levels of poverty and inequality of the 38 countries that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
In the annual report on structural reforms, this organization pointed out that the North American country has a poverty gap index of 34.2, well above the average of the rest of the member countries, which is around 28.7.
In another comparison, the OECD used the Gini index to show the situation in Mexico. On this scale from 0 to 100, which measures income inequality, the Aztec country is located 10 points above the organization’s average with 42. Data that the entity used before giving a recommendation to the country’s economic authorities. .
In addition to the above and with 55% of workers in an informal situation, it was also recommended to establish a federal unemployment insurance scheme, a network of daycare centers with priority for low-income households, and programs to reintegrate students who dropped out during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The IMF predicts a positive year for Mexico
Despite this call for attention for the authorities to make adjustments to their economy and labor structure that allow them to improve the panorama of inequality, the International Monetary Fund gave news that came as a balm for Mexican economic analysts.
The lender raised, not a little, the growth forecast for this year, going from the 2.6% that it had predicted in July, to 3.2% it was presented this Tuesday, October 3. But just as it will rise, the entity expects the slowdown to be profound and estimates that in 2024 it will close with 2.1%.
Mexico has shown notable strength in the services, construction and automobile production sectors. This has led to record-low unemployment rates and record manufacturing capacity utilization rates. It is necessary that the authorities have kept public debt under control. Monetary policy is correctly focused on reducing inflationreads the Fund’s statement.
The Government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has proposed increasing the debt next year to be able to use almost 13% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in social programs that it has promised to citizens.
However, this figure is unprecedented and is compounded by the increase in spending on infrastructure projects that have already begun in some states of the country. For all this, the IMF also accompanied its growth forecast with a warning for the North American country’s next mandate.
“The next Administration will face difficult decisions to adhere to the planned medium-term fiscal path. “A major fiscal consolidation is forecast for 2025, which will exert a significant drag on growth, reversing the momentum expected for 2024,” the report says.
With EFE and local media
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