Dismissing the news that the economy contracted by 0.2% in the first quarter of the year, President López Obrador said today the economy “is doing very, very well.”

The national statistics agency said yesterday the first quarter represented the worst economic start to the year in 10 years.

The president charged this morning that “conservative analysts” are trying to argue that the government is not functioning.

“Our adversaries are betting that things are going badly, day in and day out. They’re talking about economic stagnation, that the government is not working. In fact, we are doing well, very well.”

López Obrador recommended that experts and conservative analysts remember the first quarter of ex-president Ernesto Zedillo, who faced what has been called the worst economic crisis in Mexico’s history.

Zedillo governed from 1994 until 2000 and presided over the Mexican peso crisis in his first month in office.

“I would just like to remind you of the first quarter of the Ernesto Zedillo administration when the economy shrank by 7%. Even so, the conservatives consider that administration a success . . . . So, bravo! We’re doing very well.”

However, not as well as the last three presidents. Annual growth from January till March was 1.3% this year, but under Enrique Peña Nieto the economy grew 2.7% in the first quarter. For Felipe Calderón it grew 2.2% and for Vicente Fox, 1.8%.

Source: El Economista (sp)