Indebtedness turns on yellow lights in senators

Interest payments (on debt) are growing. When this government began, 420,000 million pesos of interest were paid, now they are going to pay 840,000 million, twice as much (…) Both things are growing, indebtedness and interest rates and these are growing faster than collection ” .

Gustavo Enrique Madero Muñoz, PAN senator.

The debt ceiling requested by the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador for next year, one of the highest that has been reported in the Federal Income Law (LIF), turned on the “yellow lights” for the senators, who they made it explicit to officials of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP).

“It is planned to continue indebting the country by contracting 1.2 billion pesos of debt,” said Luis David Ortiz, senator of Movimiento Ciudadano.

During the appearance of Gabriel Yorio, Undersecretary of the Treasury, to explain the LIF 2023, which lasted just over three and a half hours, one of the senators’ claims was the requested debt ceiling, since in the case of internal debt it is of 1 trillion 170,000 million pesos, while for the external the requested amount is 5,500 million dollars.

“What was requested is 22% higher than what was approved last year, and this situation turns on the yellow lights, especially because of the same discourse that has been raised about indebtedness and the effects it can generate,” said Miguel Ángel Mancera, senator for the PRD.

In this sense, Senator Nuvia Mayorga, from the PRI, questioned how these resources will be used, because according to the law they must be used for productive public works; however, this six-year term has been characterized by flagship works such as the Mayan Train and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, which have generated criticism about their impact on the development of the economy, and have been branded more as whims by the government in turn. .

In response, Gabriel Yorio indicated that the debt is used, as the law says, in public investment and it has been possible to change its trend as a proportion of the Gross Domestic Product.

“If the path of the debt continues, as it had before, it would reach 60% of GDP and there would be more pressure on the side of the financial cost (…) what is being tried to do is that the debt does not follow this trend of growth, but rather that it remains stabilized,” the official said.

Fast track

After the appearance of Yorio, the United Commissions of Finance and Public Credit, and of Legislative Studies, Second, approved the minute they received from the Lower House with 19 votes in favor and nine against, as well as the opinion of the Federal Law Rights, with 19 votes in favor and 10 against, both with zero abstentions.

ana.martinez@eleconomista.mx