The final quarter growth figure of 4.6% was substantially better than the consensus forecast which was for GDP growth of 3.9%. The main reason for this was a pick-up in exports to the US. On the other hand, the quarter-on-quarter growth figure was a bit less than the 1.7% consensus forecast.
Startlingly the growth rate of 2010 was the highest annual rate since the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) first won the presidency in 2000. In 2000 (all but one month of which was managed by President Ernest Zedillo Poncé de León's economic team) the economy grew by 6%.
In 2009, the economy contracted by 6.5%. Originally this was the worst contraction since the Great Depression, but subsequent revisions have now put it as the second worst, behind President Zedillo's first full year of 1995.
In December, the best performing sector was agriculture (where output was up by 12.5%). The chill in northern Mexico in January and February, which has wrecked the maize crop in Sinaloa, is likely to mean that this sector will do badly in the first part of 2011.
The industrial sector in December had decent growth in output, rising 4.9% overall. The growth in output was pretty broadly based.
Services were the comparative laggard in December, rising only 3.3%, year-on-year.
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