Mexican economic growth slows in second quarter

View of the Mexican Stock Exchange building showing the different types of world currency quotes and stock market operations in Mexico City on June 12, 2024. (Photo by Yuri CORTEZ / AFP)

Mexico City, Mexico — Mexico’s economy, the second largest in Latin America, slowed further in the second quarter of 2024 as growth weakened to 1.1 percent year-on-year, official figures showed Tuesday.

Compared with the previous three-month period, gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 0.2 percent, the national statistics agency INEGI reported in a preliminary estimate.

The Mexican economy has cooled since last year, when it grew 3.2 percent.

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The central bank expects economic growth to fall to 2.4 percent this year and to 1.5 percent next year, sapped by trade and geopolitical tensions.

“There is a noticeable economic slowdown, despite high public spending,” according to Gabriela Siller, head of economic analysis for the financial group Banco BASE.

Economic growth of 1.5 percent in the first half of this year was “half of what the US GDP grew by in the same period,” she noted.

In March, the Bank of Mexico reduced its benchmark interest rate for the first time in three years, to 11 percent, where it has been held since, following a drop in inflation.