(Expansión) – Time passes very quickly and President López Obrador has already given his fourth government report, we are beginning the last stage of his six-year term. Today I am going to reflect on the positive and the negative of the third report of the president.
The positive
We have had macroeconomic stability, there is some recovery in economic growth taking into account the sharp drop due to the pandemic, but it has not been enough to return to pre-pandemic levels. However, under the current context it is better to give priority to lowering inflation.
The negative
The reduction in the wealth of the richest is not synonymous with less social inequality in the country. I understand the president’s narrative and I share it, we all want a country with fewer poor people, but it has been shown that it is not with gifts when people stop being poor.
Although President López Obrador denies the importance of the data, they are important to know the social reality of the country.
The poor first? The current government’s social programs only benefit 37% of the poorest households; In addition, it is much lower than in 2018, when these programs reached 56%.
It is important to point out that today in Mexico there is a much lower GDP per capita and it is at 2014 levels.
We still do not have a really good level health system, although it is a problem that has dragged on for several governments, nothing has been done to improve it.
We have uncertainty to invest; changing the investment rules is causing many private investment projects to be stopped. It is necessary to give a strong boost to investment and to projects in which private and public initiatives invest jointly in order to generate more and better jobs.
The issue of security is still pending because we continue to have a Mexico full of violence, robbery and insecurity.
Although the president’s narrative against corruption has worked for him, more forceful actions are still lacking to be able to establish a rule of law in the country. Having a rule of law would help a lot to attract more investment and would give certainty to companies that want to invest in the country.
Despite having relatively stable public finances, we continue to have problems in the finances of Pemex, CFE and in the enormous expense that some public works are registering.
All governments have their achievements and criticisms, but the government of President López Obrador still owes us the fight against poverty, in having a rule of law and in giving investment certainty. Apparently, the president forgot about education because he did not mention that it is urgent to improve educational quality and invest in research.
He has two years left and they will be important challenges, especially if he wants to have his place in history where he was the president who laid the foundations for a more prosperous country and who respected and applied the laws that are in the Constitution or who simply the change that occurred in 2018 was so that everything remained the same.
First the poor, we all agree with the president, but adequate economic policies must be in place so that we can all have a better country and, above all, poverty is combated with investment and quality education.
Editor’s note: Jorge Sánchez Tello is Director of Applied Research at the Fundación de Estudios Financieros-FUNDEF AC Independent “Think Tank” based at ITAM, on the Financial System. Follow him on and on The opinions of this article are the sole responsibility of the author.
