MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Officially recession is over but Mexico’s economy contracted 6.5% in 2009

The only bright spot in last year’s statistics came from agriculture

Mexico’s GDP shrank by 6.5% last year amid the global recession, greater than the 6.2% of 1995 but the less severe end of the range of 6.5 percent to 7.5% decline forecast by the Mexican central bank.

In 1995 growth was throttled by a financial crisis that forced a sharp devaluation of the peso and a massive aid package from the US Treasury to the tune of 50 billion US dollars.

The only bright spot in last year's statistics was agriculture, which posted a gain of 1.8%.

Though GDP rose 2.03% in the fourth quarter from the previous three-month period, marking the official end of the recession, the Mexican economy still contracted 2.3% compared with the fourth quarter of 2008. In the first three quarters of 2009 the economy contracted 7.9%, 10% and 6.1%. The second quarter plunge was the strongest in seven decades.

Last week, Mexico's finance ministry revised its 2010 growth forecast upward, from 3% to 3.9%, citing the 'significant rally' in non-oil exports, vehicle production, trade and transportation.

Economists from Spanish-owned BBVA bank agree that recovery is under way in Mexico, but say the economy will not return to pre-recession levels until the middle of 2011.