AMLO contracts 46% more of external debt

Mexico City, (April 05, 2021).- During the first 26 months of the Andrés Manuel López Obrador Administration, the external debt of the federal government increased 22.3 billion US dollars, 46 percent more than that generated in the same period with former president Enrique Peña Nieto.

In terms of amount, the difference between the increase in the debt of AMLO and EPN is more than 7 billion US dollars.

Carlos Vázquez Vidal, an analyst at the Center for Economic and Budgetary Research, pointed out that five factors have contributed to the rise in foreign debt by the Government: the amortization of the debt, support for Pemex, the drop in interest rates at the level of international, the fall in budgetary income due to Covid-19 and the lack of adjustments to government spending.

“The Government announced a measure for the Treasury to issue debt instruments for Pemex to pay its debt, because Pemex lost its rating and it is more difficult for it to get financing, and at the same time it is more expensive. So what we see here is a decrease in the debt of Pemex and an increase in that of the federal government. “

He also said that the Treasury has preferred external financing a little more than internal, due to the fall in interest rates at the international level and the access that Mexico has to those markets.

Finally, he added that by maintaining budgeted spending on both social programs and government priority infrastructure projects over the past year while revenues fell, this represented pressure on the debt.

Within the external debt, the loans granted by the World Bank stand out, totaling 3.8 billion US dollars, a figure 53 percent higher than the financing received by the same institution during the entire term of Enrique Peña Nieto.

In the Peña Nieto government, the World Bank granted 17 loans for a total of 2.3 billion US dollars.

Among the credits granted by the institution in the current federal government, one of one billion dollars stands out, the objective of which was to provide liquidity and establish instruments to strengthen credit in the face of the pandemic.

In total terms, considering both the external and the internal, the federal government has increased its debt by 75.5 billion US dollars, 67 percent more than the increase presented in the same period of the Peña Nieto Administration.

Héctor Magaña, an analyst at Tec de Monterrey’s Center for Research in Economics and Business, highlighted that the economic contraction that the country suffered last year and the depreciation of the exchange rate would boost the debt-to-GDP ratio.

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