The timely GDP estimate, published this Tuesday by INEGI, anticipates that in the first quarter of the year, economic activity in Mexico showed greater dynamism in relation to the weakness of the fourth quarter of 2023.
Indeed, GDP national team avoided falling into negative territory at the beginning of 2024since in the period January-March grew up to a quarterly variation of 0.2 percent, accumulating growth rates positive for ten consecutive quarters.
In this regard, Banorte’s economic analysis team highlighted that spinning 10 quarters of improvement is something not observed since the period 2009-2013when economic activity in the country rose for 15 quarters.
In addition, the timely data was above the 0.1 percent of the previous quarter and also the 0.1 percent expected by the consensus of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Compared to the same quarter a year before, GDP registered an annual growth of 2 percenta figure that implies a slowdown against the 2.5 percent of the October-December 2023 period, in addition to being the smallest expansion since the end of 2021.
According to the Timely Estimate of the Gross Domestic Product of the INEGI, the three main activity groups economic They had a mixed behavior.
GDP appropriate timing of primary activities, which are of the agricultural sector, fell 1.1 percent quarterly after a decline of 1 percent in the last quarter of 2023.
The one with the activities secondary or Industrials contracted 0.4 percent quarterly, after the 0.1 percent drop registered in the previous quarter.
And the one about the activities tertiary, represented by trade and services, grew 0.7 percent in the first quarter of 2024, after an advance of 0.3 percent in the October-December period.
In annual terms, also based on seasonally adjusted figures, primary activities grew 1.3 percent against January-March 2023; secondary schools, 1.5 percent, and tertiary schools, 2.5 percent.
The annual GDP growth rate increased in the three main activities, although notably in commerce and services, which reflects the greater contribution of private consumption.
Although the mexican economy presented a modest growth of 0.2 percent in the January-March period compared to the previous quarter, when it in turn registered an advance of 0.1 percent, reflected better activity figures economic in the country.
“We see a more positive report than expectedsince the consensus of analysts was expecting that the economic weakness observed towards the end of 2023 would end up infecting the first quarter of this year,” said Janneth Quiroz, director of Economic, Exchange and Stock Market Analysis at Monex, in an interview with this reporter.
In fact, “the range that was estimated for the variation of GDP in the first quarter of the year even included some estimates that suggested that the economy had contracted,” added the economist.
“And well, with this timely report we see that the growth of 0.2 percent at a quarterly rate paints us a less adverse panorama which was expected,” Quiroz emphasized.
In the same sense, Steven Palacio and Gabriel Lozano, economists at JP Morgan, said in a note published after the data was known that “the preliminary GDP figure of the first quarter It was certainly weak, but not as weak as expected”.
Experts said that “weak momentum late last year and early this year had raised concerns about the fundamental state of the economy.”
In his opinion, the economic activity indicator for February, which would be equivalent to a proxy monthly GDP, grew 1.4 percent monthly, and the data implicit in the timely GDP of the first quarter “point to an additional increase of 1.2 percent” in the March indicator.
The data published yesterday correspond to the timely estimate of the quarterly GDP, which does not replace the traditional calculation, which offers a much more complete vision of the country’s economic activities.
The revision of the figures will be published on May 23 and it will be seen whether in March economic activity grew at a monthly rate similar to that of February.
