Mexico City. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that “we can hold on a little longer” in the face of the drop with which international markets opened this Monday due to the financial crisis reported in the United States.
To support his words, he presented positive indicators that the national economy has accumulated during his six-year term, such as the fact that the Bank of Mexico’s reserves reached a “record” of 221 billion dollars; and that the peso has appreciated over these six years, which has not happened in the last eight presidential terms.
“This is what shows that our economic strategy has worked. Because this financial crisis has caught us weakened and it would affect us greatly,” he said in his morning press conference on Monday. In which he showed that the US dollar opens the day at 19 pesos and 55 cents per unit.
Questioned about this international situation and the panic in the markets of Asia, Europe and the United States, which had an impact on the Mexican peso, which opened at 19.55 per dollar, the federal president guaranteed that the national economy is strong in the face of any contingency.
He explained that this crisis was caused by the increase in unemployment rates in the United States reported last week.
“As for the exchange rate of the countries, in the case of Mexico, there was a loss for the peso, not very significant, but it did increase to more than 19 pesos, this had not happened before. In any case, we are left with the question, yes, this is the crisis that originated in the United States and has a global impact, let’s see if we can see what happens with our peso, so it affects us and it affected us.”
He said that last week it was reported that unemployment in our northern neighbor rose from 3.9 to 4.3 percent.
Official figures show that only 114,000 new jobs were created in the United States in July, 35 percent less than expected.
“This made financial markets nervous and had a global impact on exchange rates in countries.”
The head of the federal executive showed a slide showing the impact of this situation on some currencies at a global level, and assured that although the peso lost power against the dollar, it was not significant.
According to the data, after this instability in global markets, the Swiss franc is now the most appreciated currency against the US dollar – surpassing the peso – with 13.9 percent in favor; and our currency is now the second with 5.8 percent in favor.
However, López Obrador explained, the Canadian dollar, for example, fell 4 percent and the Euro 3.7 percent less; the Japanese yen 29 percent less, the Brazilian real 44 percent and the Russian ruble 77 percent lower.
“It doesn’t affect us that much, because our finances are very strong, of course the United States is our neighbor, there is economic integration and it affects everyone: it affects Japan and it affects everywhere. But we can resist a little longer.”
This, he stressed, is for two reasons: “One, we have sufficient reserves, a record for the Bank of Mexico, we have never had so many reserves as we do now, 221 billion dollars; and the other thing that helps us is that throughout the six-year period the peso has appreciated, the peso has strengthened.”
Furthermore, unlike the six-year terms of Luis Echeverría, José López Portillo, Miguel de la Madrid, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Ernesto Zedillo, Vicente Fox, Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto, when the peso was devalued, our currency has strengthened under his administration. “It is the first time in 50 years that it has not been devalued.”
Given this situation, the Tabasco native insisted that the Mexican economy has the conditions to withstand the financial crisis that originated in the United States. And he even took the time to be ironic: “The only thing I don’t like is this ‘black Monday’. Why not a white Monday or a different color?”
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– 2024-08-06 12:37:59
