Manufacturing GDP up 5.5%

Mexico City — Manufacturing industry posted 5.5% growth of its Gross Domestic Product in the first quarter 2012 over even term in 2011, which greatly exceeds 4% expectations, according to data from the Mexican Statistics Agency, Instituto Nacional de Estadistica y Geografia (INEGI). Leticia Armenta Fraire, Head of Economic Analysis Center in Tecnologico de Monterrey, considered that this growth is pushed by the reactivation of Mexican exports to the United States, which went up in the first quarter of the year, after the deceleration they suffered last September due to weakness in the US market, the main destination of Mexican goods. INEGI pointed-out that Mexico’s sales abroad grew 13.7% in September 2011, 13.4% in October and 10.1% in November, but in December they plummeted growing only 8.2%, while last January they went up 10.5% and in February the increase was 16.3%.