Mexico

Mexican same-store retail sales rose by 10.6% across 2022 compared to the previous year, as the highest inflation in over two decades sent prices soaring, Mexican retailers' association ANTAD said Wednesday, with sales expected to moderate in 2023, Reuters reported. In 2022, sales at the retail group's member stores totaled 1.43 trillion Mexican pesos ($76.08 billion). The retail group said in a statement that surging consumer prices were partly responsible for the sales growth last year, as top-line inflation reached 7.82% in December.

Mexico's headline inflation accelerated and exceeded expectations in early January, data from the national statistics agency showed on Tuesday, marking the first monthly pickup since September as markets brace for fresh interest rate hikes ahead, Reuters reported. Annual headline inflation in the first half of the month reached 7.94%, beating both the 7.77% recorded in the month of December and economists' forecasts of 7.86%, though still below the two-decade high of 8.70% registered in August and September.

Mexican industrial output was unchanged in November from October but rose 3.2% year-over-year, the national statistics agency said on Wednesday, as economists expect an economic slowdown in the United States to affect the sector ahead, Reuters reported. Statistics agency INEGI said in a statement that higher construction and utilities output boosted industrial production in the month, but ended up offset by a drop in mining and manufacturing.

Mexico's headline inflation ended 2022 slightly below analysts' expectations, while core inflation finally appeared to have peaked, data from the national statistics agency showed on Monday, Reuters reported. Annual headline inflation in December reached 7.82%, up moderately from 7.80% in November, but still below the record 8.70% reached in August and September. Meanwhile the core index, which strips out some volatile food and energy prices, hit 8.35% on an annual basis in December, dropping from November's 8.51%, and the first slowdown since its stubborn upwards cycle began.

U.S. managed services and cloud connectivity provider GTT, formerly called Global Telecom and Technology, has emerged from its Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases after more than two years of corporate and financial restructuring, BNAmericas.com reported. The company, which maintains ethernet and IP sites in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City, first filed for bankruptcy protection in October 2021. "Over the past two years, we have concentrated relentlessly on transforming our business into a customer-focused, managed services provider with a culture of continuous improvement.

Mexico's government said on Friday that it will issue a new decree for a temporary exemption on import tariffs for various items, a measure intended to tame inflation, Reuters reported. The new decree, set to be published in the official gazette on Friday, will extend a prior order to temporarily waive tariffs and include more items, according to a government statement.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Wednesday the government would help Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) if needs be, when asked about the state oil company's ability to shoulder its debt obligations in 2023, Reuters reported. The president, a resource nationalist who has made reviving the cash-strapped Pemex a priority, has given tax breaks and capital injections to the firm as it battles to increase oil and gas output while laboring under a hefty debt load.

Mexico's economy likely contracted by 0.1% in November compared with the previous month, a preliminary estimate from national statistics agency INEGI showed on Monday, Reuters reported. The probable drop in activity follows months of aggressive monetary policy tightening in Mexico, rising core inflation and signs of an economic slowdown in the United States. Compared with the same month a year earlier, the economy was estimated to have grown by 4.2% in November. Mexico's economy expanded by 0.9% in the third quarter from the previous three-month period.

Mexico’s central bank will likely decouple from the Federal Reserve early next year by raising interest rates less than the US, after it matches the Fed during its meeting this week, according to Barclays Plc, Bloomberg News reported. Banxico will raise its key rate by 50 basis points to 10.50% on Thursday, mirroring what’s expected by the Federal Open Market Committee, before delivering a last hike of 25 basis points in February, less than the 50 basis-point increase by the Fed in January, Barclays’s analysts wrote in a report.