The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warns that Mexico is the country lagging furthest behind in reducing its income gap with the United States among Latin American economies.
In a span of 50 years, from 1972 to 2022, other smaller economies such as the Dominican Republic, Panama, Chile, and Colombia have been faster than Mexico in narrowing the income gap with advanced economies such as the United States.
Mexico ranks sixth in Latin America in terms of GDP per capita, according to a research based on updated data from the World Economic Outlook (WEO).
The six countries in the region with the highest GDP per capita are the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Panama, in first place.
In the analysis, they explain that the progress of the aforementioned six countries has had an impact on the multiplicity of families’ purchasing power. particularly that of the Dominican Republic, which is now four times higher than it was five decades ago.
“In per capita terms, we have one of the most tragic consequences of what has been the performance of the Mexican economy with respect to other countries after the pandemic,” the professor of the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM), Victor Gómez Ayala, explained.
“On average, the dynamism of the Mexican economy was very vulnerable with the COVID crisis, and it will take a long time for the economic authorities to start the strategies to recover the growth capacity we had before the pandemic,” he stressed.
It refers specifically to improving the structure of the education system to strengthen human capital, improve security conditions, and reduce the lag in energy matters.
“The economy has surprised in terms of growth, in particular the domestic market, which has been much stronger than analysts thought. This is thanks to the strength of consumption and the flow of investments attracted by nearshoring,” the expert added.
However, we must not forget that we are in a process of weak recovery with respect to other economies and to ourselves in other episodes of crisis.
Gómez Ayala explains that in May of this year, the economy was 4.2% above the pre-pandemic level. That is, it took him 50 months to reach the pre-crisis level.
Meanwhile, 50 months after the global financial crisis of 2009, the Mexican economy was already 5.6% above its pre-crisis level.
