Private-sector specialists consulted by Mexico’s Central Bank (Banxico) left the growth forecast for this year practically unchanged, as the predicted forecast for April is 2.4 percent.
According to the results of the most recent poll of private-sector economists by Banxico, growth forecasts that were made at the beginning of the year are still on track in April 2016. Growth forecasts for 2017 grew from 2.92 to 3.26 percent between January and April 2016 and forecasts for 2018 grew from 2.86 to 3.22 in that same period.
The experts also reduced the inflation forecast for 2016 to 3.19 percent, down from the 3.3 percent forecasted earlier. They also reduced the inflation forecast for 2017 and 2018 to 3.35 and 3.49 percent, respectively, from 3.41 and 3.50, which had been their prediction in March.
Forecasts for the price of the U.S. dollar in pesos for 2016 and 2017 changed from 17.66 and 17.33 pesos per dollar, respectively, to 17.61 and 17.20 pesos per dollar, respectively, a 5-cent and 10-cent reduction.
Banxico will not change the monetary policy in the first half of 2016, but the experts expect it to raise the reference rate by 25 basis points in the third quarter of 2016, and another in the fourth quarter. In 2017, most experts expect the interest rate to average 4.87 percent.
With regard to the factors that could become obstacles to economic growth, the experts pointed to the weakness of the external market and international financial instability. They were less concerned about unstable exchange rates.
THE NEWS
