1994-1995: Outflow of Capital From Mexico Triggers Economic Crisis

In early 1994, investors pull money out of the Mexican economy in response to an increase in US interest rates and political instability. This causes the Mexican government to lose massive amounts of reserves and lead it to allow the peso to float in December of 1994. In January of 1995 it again asks the IMF for assistance and receives packages from both the IMF and US Treasury. This time, massive privatizations of “transportation, banking and finance, railways and the petrochemical industries” were recommended as a way of paying off the loans. A devaluation of the peso in 1995 along with an IMF-mandated rise in interest rates triggers the worst depression in Mexico in 60 years. GDP falls by 6.2 percent, wages fall by 25 percent, unemployment doubles, and 12,000 Mexican firms file for bankruptcy. [Global Exchange, 9/2001, pp. 4-5 ; Hart-Landsberg, 12/2002]