Mexican growth close to bottoming out

The slowdown in Mexican GDP growth to 0.7% y/y in Q4 means that the economy grew by just 1.1% in 2013 – its weakest performance since 2009, and its second weakest performance since 2002. Nonetheless, while growth in the first quarter of this year is likely to be held back by weather-related weakness in the US, we expect growth to pick up over the rest of 2014. Elsewhere, despite the announcement yesterday of spending cuts, we still think that Brazil’s government will struggle to meet its target for the primary budget surplus this year.