MEXICO CITY – Thirty private-sector economic research and consulting groups have increased from 4.8 percent to 6.3 percent their estimate of how much the Mexican economy will contract in 2009, the country’s central bank said on Wednesday.

If they are on target, that would be the steepest economic drop since 1932, when the nation’s gross domestic product plunged 14.83 percent, and would surpass the 6.22 percent decline in 1995, amid the country’s worst recession in the past 14 years.

Nevertheless, the experts said they expect the Mexican economy to grow 2.1 percent in 2010, Banco de Mexico said in a statement accompanying its June survey of private economists.

In terms of jobs, the number of people in formal employment is expected to drop by the end of 2009 by a total of 656,000 people, compared with figures from December 2008.

Meanwhile, the groups said that for the year private consumption and investment will drop by 5.5 percent and 10.2 percent, respectively.

The analysts also said they expect year-end inflation of 4.73 percent, with a core rate – excluding volatile food and energy prices – of 4.41 percent, while their forecast for overall and core inflation for 2010 was 3.86 percent and 3.8 percent, respectively.

With respect to the exchange rate, the analysts said they expect the Mexican peso to be valued at 13.47 per dollar at the end of 2009 and to continue at that level in the coming year.

Practically all of the experts said real salaries declined in the first half of the year relative to the same period of 2008, and two-thirds of respondents expect that trend to continue in the second half of 2009.

The analysts consulted in Banco de Mexico’s survey said the public-sector deficit could rise to 2.4 percent of gross domestic product and the trade deficit could reach $12.46 billion, due to an expected 20.6 percent decline in non-petroleum exports.

They also revised downward the amount of foreign direct investment they expect Mexico to receive in 2009, from $13.07 billion to $12.44 billion.

Mexico’s economy has been battered by the global economic slowdown, with demand for the country’s exports plunging 32.8 percent in May due to sagging demand from the United States, the market for 80 percent of Mexico’s exports.

Mexicans living in the United States also cut back sharply in May on the amount of money sent home to relatives, with remittances falling 19.9 percent, the biggest monthly decline on record.

Tourism also took a severe hit in late April and early May due to the outbreak of swine flu, with Mexican authorities saying that industry has suffered the biggest drop in revenues since statistics began to be recorded in the 1980s.

Mexico’s revenues from oil exports – its top foreign currency earner, followed by remittances and tourism – also plunged in May, falling 52.1 percent to $2.4 billion, as a result of lower crude prices on global markets and falling production at the country’s main fields. EFE