Mexico

The Bank of Mexico's five-member board unanimously held the key interest rate at 11.25% for a sixth straight monetary policy meeting on Thursday, as expected, saying progress on slowing inflation had been made even as the outlook remained challenging, Reuters reported. Banxico, as the bank is known, repeated previous guidance that it would need to maintain the benchmark rate at its current level "for some time" in order to bring inflation to its 3% target, plus or minus one percentage point.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Monday that more needs to be done to fight inflation, adding he wants to maintain price agreements with companies to limit the cost of 24 basic food items, first introduced last year, Reuters reported. Mexico's annual inflation rose slightly to 4.32% in November compared to 4.26% the previous month, according to data released last week by the statistics institute. "We have to put in more effort. This is an issue that we have to take great care of," the president said speaking in a regular press conference.

The U.S. and Mexico agreed on Wednesday to cooperate on stronger screening of investments to reduce national security risks and discussed integrating cross-border payments systems, but U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen insisted that the moves were not motivated by concerns about China, Reuters reported. The Treasury and Mexican Finance Ministry signed an agreement to exchange information on technical information and best practices as Yellen wrapped up a three-day visit to Mexico City. The Biden administration is promoting Mexico as a premier investment destination for U.S.

Mexico's headline inflation accelerated in November while core inflation continued to ease, official data showed on Thursday, reinforcing expectations the central bank will cut interest rates starting next year, Reuters reported. Annual headline inflation in Latin America's second-largest economy hit 4.32% in November, statistics agency INEGI said, a slight rebound from 4.26% in the previous month, when it touched its lowest level since February 2021, but still below the forecast of 4.40% in a Reuters poll of economists.

A trust administrated by the Mexican government has bought back around $480 million in bonds issued to finance a partially built Mexico City airport that was later canceled, the trust's operator said late Wednesday, Reuters reported. Investors holding notes with maturities from 2026 to 2047 participated in the buyback, the Grupo Aeroportuario de la Ciudad de Mexico said, trimming the overall outstanding indebtedness to around $3.7 billion. The trust in late November had sweetened the tender offer, extending early bid premiums through the end of the buyback.

An involuntary bankruptcy against Mexico’s TV Azteca has been dismissed, with a bankruptcy-court judge saying that the multimedia conglomerate and its bondholders are involved in a dispute that must play out in U.S. district court, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. TV Azteca had been sued over missed payments to bondholders in a case in district court, and then earlier this year an involuntary bankruptcy petition was filed by a group of bondholders in bankruptcy court.

Mexico's central bank governor said in a newspaper interview published on Monday that easing inflationary pressure meant the Bank of Mexico could start looking at gradually cutting its key interest rate, but that it was unlikely to happen this year, Reuters reported.

Petroleos Mexicanos’ losses deepened and production dropped, complicating the oil explorer’s efforts to whittle down its hefty debt burden, Bloomberg News reported. Pemex’s net loss widened to 79.13 billion pesos ($4.4 billion) from 25.44 billion pesos in the prior period, the company reported Friday, the worst result since the end of 2022. Crude and condensate production fell to 1.85 million barrels a day from 1.88 million in the second quarter. Light crude production fell by 83,000 barrels a day from a year ago, while condensate rose by 192,000 barrels a day.

Mexico's economy, the second biggest in Latin America, could expand by 3.5% or more this year, a senior finance ministry official said on Wednesday, as one central banker flagged a "long battle ahead" to better corral creeping consumer prices, Reuters reported. In testimony before lawmakers, Deputy Finance Minister Gabriel Yorio talked up the expected expansion of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), and largely dismissed concerns that the gaining value of the local currency was bad for shipments to foreign markets.

Mexico’s annual inflation slowed past all forecasts in early October as the central bank pledges to hold interest rates at a record high in Latin America’s second-largest economy, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer prices rose 4.27% in the first half of the month compared to the same period a year earlier, down from 4.47% in late September, the national statistics institute reported Tuesday. The print was below all analyst forecasts in a Bloomberg survey that had a 4.37% median estimate.