Weekly Report - 21 October 2010 (WR-10-42)

The finance ministry this week raised its forecast for GDP growth in 2010 from 4.5% to 4.8%. The problem is that its forecast for growth in 2011 is still only 3.9%. The finance ministry, whose head Ernesto Cordero is widely presumed to be President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa's preferred candidate to take over as president in 2012, reported that the economy was continuing to recover faster than the government expected. In 2009 the economy contracted by 6.5%, when the US economy went into recession.