MEXICO STRONGER THAN PEERS FISCALLY, MINISTER SAYS

Mexico will come out of the COVID-19 pandemic much stronger than many of its Latin American peers in terms of its macro and fiscal conditions due to a lack of spending, Mexican Finance Minister Arturo Herrera, shown, said on Tuesday. The government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was austere in its spending and acquisition of new debt to address the fallout from the pandemic, spending far less in relative terms of GDP than many of its peers. Brazil spent an extra 8.6 per cent of gross domestic product on its pandemic response for instance, while Mexico barely spent an extra 0.6 per cent of GDP, according to data from the International Monetary Fund. Meanwhile, Mexico posted a larger-than-expected trade deficit in March.