GDP growth has surprise at the beginning of the year – El Universal

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The Mexican economy surprised the specialists with higher growth than expected in the first quarter of the year, driven by strong services sector and increased domestic demand, according to preliminary figures from INEGI.

from adjusted figures seasonally, the country’s GDP grew 0.8% in the first quarter compared to previous quarter, bringing the annual rate reached 2.9%, the highest rate since the second quarter of 2014, according to the estimate Timely Quarterly GDP.

the annual growth exceeded 2.3% expected by specialists and 2.5% reported at the end of 2015. this result helped the dynamism of the services sector.

the private consumption and the services sector are activities that are pulling more to the economy. They are the main engine and is not a story of this year, is a history of recent quarters, said Adrian Muniz, economic analyst at Vector.

The tertiary sector (trade, transport and all financial services and professional) registered a quarterly increase of 0.8%, bringing the annual rate reached 3.7%. Since the first quarter of 2015 the annual growth of the service sector remains above the national average.

secondary activities (mining, manufacturing and construction) recorded a quarterly increase of 1.5%, higher than 0.2% reported last quarter of 2015 the annual rate stood at 2.2%, the highest figure since the fourth quarter of 2014.

the secondary sector grew better than the tertiary. Apart from that, the industrial sector is strong downside risks on the side of mining, with declining oil production, and on the side of the manufacturing due to lower demand from abroad, said Muniz.

in the construction sector the outlook is not positive, especially in a context where cutting public spending comes, many of these resources would be allocated to public investment are going to move payment providers Pemex or are to be deleted, added the specialist.

the primary activities grew 1.2% over the previous quarter, bringing the annual rate reached 3.0%.

the results better than expected imply a potential upside to our forecast of GDP growth for 2016 of 2.1%, said Eduardo Gonzalez, an analyst with Banamex.

But a key factor in the coming quarters is the world’s growth, particularly the US, to which González expected to remain weak in 2016.