Mexico City, Mexico — The state of Quintana Roo is anticipated to be one of a few to benefit with extra investment money in 2023. With the current goal of the Andrés Manuel López Obrador government to detonate public investment next year, that goal may be unachievable due to the emerging complicated macroeconomic outlook.
The Ministry of Finance and Public Credit projects a public investment of 1.1 trillion pesos next year, an amount 21.7 percent higher than in 2022, and the highest in the last decade.
However, an analysis by México Evalúa reports the 2023 Economic Package clearly shows investment projects and consented states.
“We see several risks that could prevent this investment goal from being met. First of all, there are the economic estimates that are very optimistic, and public investment, unfortunately, is always an escape valve when income estimates are not met because investment is cut,” explained Jorge Cano, a researcher at the Public Expenditure and Accountability Program of Mexico Evalúa.
In this six-year term, it is recurrently observed that the planned amount of the investment is lower than what is actually observed. In 2019, the first year of government, it was up to 131,000 million pesos below what was planned, he said.
Their report shows that of the 196,000 million pesos of extra investment in 2023, Chiapas, Quintana Roo, Tabasco and Yucatán will obtain 109,000 million of it. However, the state that will benefit the most will be Yucatan with 37.5 billion in public investment mainly due to the fact that it will receive 29.2 billion for the construction of the Maya Train.
Compared to the average from 2013 to 2018, 17 states will receive together, next year, 117,500 million pesos less in investment.
The main loser will be the State of Mexico with 35.5 billion pesos despite being the country’s most populous state. Cano says other states likely to experience serious cuts are Baja California Sur, Colima and Tamaulipas, all with reductions of more than 50 percent while Aguascalientes, Baja California, Veracruz and Zacatecas will have cuts greater than 30 percent.
