Mexico City 2015 Blog: Keynote by Finance Secretary Luis Videgaray

By
Carin Zissis

The secretary's final remarks focused on Mexico's strides and remaining challenges as a regional leader.

Secretary of Finance and Public Credit Luis Videgaray set the stage for his remarks by outlining the three main global challenges for the Mexican economy: the falling price of oil, which shows no sign of reversing course in the short or medium term; U.S. monetary policy and volatility in advanced economies; and a deteriorating outlook for global economic growth—particularly in emerging economies.

He went on to outline the ways in which Mexico is confronting these economic hurdles, focusing on strong macroeconomic fundamentals, liquidity, and structural reforms. Mexico's Central Bank has consolidated its autonomous monetary policy to maintain low levels of inflation, he said, while fiscal reforms are helping the country to overcome its dependence on being an oil economy. The secretary stressed that the federal government's public debt policy helps to maintain sustainable and diverse debt levels. In comparison with other economies, Mexico's debt levels are low, at 44 percent of GDP for 2015.

In terms of economic outlook, Videgaray said that, given the global economic panorama, Mexico's first quarter GDP growth of 2.5 percent was strong. He stated that employment numbers are also positive; 766,000 formal jobs were created in April 2015, representing the largest increase since November 2010. In addition, exports other than oil increased 6.2 percent in the first quarter of the year.

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