MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s gross domestic product fell 8.2 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the INEGI statistics agency said Wednesday.

As recently as last month, private economists were expecting a first-quarter GDP drop of 5.5 percent and a decline of 4 percent for all of 2009, but several institutions issued more pessimistic outlooks within the last two weeks.

The global recession has put an end to seven straight years of economic expansion in Mexico, but even the highest growth rate achieved during that period – 4.6 percent in 2006 – was unimpressive in comparison with other major economies in the developing world.

INEGI released the gloomy figures hours after CEEG, a group representing the Mexican subsidiaries of dozens of multinational corporations, said that its members plan to invest an additional $6.3 billion in the Latin American country this year.

President Felipe Calderon welcomed the announcement, which was made at his official residence by CEEG chairman Julio Armando de Quesada, and called the move “a concrete example of confidence” in the Mexican economy.

“This year and, despite the economic crisis, convinced that the future of our enterprises is linked to Mexico, we will invest $6.3 billion and we will generate more than 27,300 new jobs,” De Quesada said.

The pledged new investments would represent a slight drop from the $6.7 billion CEEG members invested in Mexico last year.

“We know our responsibility in Mexico’s economic growth and we are committed to it,” the business leader said, adding that CEEG recently reached agreement with the government agency Promexico on a strategy to attract more foreign investment to the country.

Mexico, Calderon said, remains a “very good place to invest,” even though the government expects the country’s economy to contract 4.1 percent this year.

He described investment as “the principal engine of economic and job growth” as Mexico strives to overcome “challenges of historic magnitude,” such as rampant crime and the swine-flu outbreak blamed for 74 deaths and at least $1 billion in economic losses.

“These problems have permitted us to not only put to the test, but to demonstrate, the institutional capacity of Mexico and the Mexicans to come out ahead,” Calderon said.

The president said he was confident of economic recovery “in the months to come.”

Founded in 2004, CEEG is a forum whose member companies account for 10.5 percent of Mexico’s GDP, 12 percent of its exports and 500,000 direct jobs.

The group includes local subsidiaries of Spanish energy giants Iberdrola and Gas Natural, American Express, French insurer Axa, Citigroup, auto-parts maker Bosch and BP, among others. EFE