Mexican gross fixed investment grew by 10% year-on-year in 2021 driven by the economic reactivation after passing the worst stage of the coronavirus pandemic, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi) reported this Friday. Inegi indicated that this result was obtained due to a 16% increase in total machinery and equipment spending and a 5.6% increase in construction. Gross fixed investment had a 7.6% increase in the last month of the year following a 12.3% rise in machinery and equipment and a 3.7% increase in construction.

According to seasonally adjusted data, gross fixed investment increased 1.2% last December compared to the previous month, due to 2.2% increases in machinery and equipment, while construction remained unchanged.

Mexican gross fixed investment fell 18.2% y-o-y in 2020 dragged down by the covid-19 crisis. In 2019, this investment contracted 4.9%, while it grew 0.6% in 2018 and declined 1.5% in 2017. Thus, gross fixed investment in Mexico remains 13.1% below the level it was at in 2018. Gross fixed investment allows to have "a broad knowledge" about the behavior of investment in the short term, according to Inegi. It is made up of goods used in the productive process for more than one year and which are subject to property rights.

The Mexican economy grew 4.8% in 2021 and contracted 8.2% in 2020, its worst slump since the Great Depression of 1932. In 2019, the Mexican economy contracted by 0.3%.