Rogelio Ramírez de la O

Photo: Héctor López

The Secretary of the Treasury, Rogelio Ramírez de la O, confronted the opposition senators, to whom he suggested that they be well informed if they want to talk about Mexico's debt, because it is a very complex issue, in addition to assuring them that this government broke mantras in tax and financial matters.

During his four-hour appearance before the Senate plenary session, the head of the Treasury guaranteed a transition without financial problems, but warned that in 2025 there will be a lot of uncertainty.

One after another, the opposition senators demanded that the Secretary of the Treasury make decisions regarding public, internal and external debt, given the view of some analysts that it is an unprecedented debt.

One of the senators who raised it was PRD member Juan Manuel Fócil.

I want you to corroborate that from 10.8 billion pesos we are going to go to 16 billion pesos and that it represents an increase of 48% of Mexico's debt that, from Díaz Ordaz to Peña Nieto, for 54 years, with all the corruption that is attributed "To Fobaproa, the Master Scam, in 54 years we managed to accumulate 10.8 billion in debt and in just six years we are going to accumulate 5.2 billion more debt, almost 50 percent," he asked.

I suggest that in our assessments we always look for a context on the issue of indebtedness, because it is a complex issue, no one here pretends that there is no debt or that it is at high or low levels, much less make a value judgment, because The market may be denying us and that seems to me that for every professional who deals with the issue of debt it is mandatory to make these contextual references, to be able to move through a rigorous and professional discussion,” he answered to close his entire appearance.

Before, he had already explained that “in percentage points of the product, here I have it, the debt against the product during the six-year term of President Felipe Calderón was 7.4 percentage points against the Gross Domestic Product; In the six-year term of President Enrique Peña Nieto, it was eight percentage points of the product.

Taking into account the 2024 estimate, which you know and have commented on, the increase in debt over the product would be 5.2% of the product, that is, the comparative increase, which was also asked by some other senator later, is an increase that we We think it is quite reasonable and that it is below the last two administrations,” explained the secretary.

Ramírez de la O added that Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña had remnants of the Bank of Mexico and tax reform, elements that this six-year term does not have.

In this administration the mantra that the State withdraws from investment, that the State does not invest in regional development; breaks the mantra of the closeness of interests between officials and the economic groups of interest; breaks the mantra that the salary should not be raised because inflation rises. And we, in this case, have increased the salary 86% in real terms; Inflation reached a peak in 2021, in the middle, and is declining,” he stated.

Regarding the stability that they will leave to the next government, he said that “we have begun to prepay debt maturities of the next administration, we could have made prepayments of our debt, we still have debt amortizations for the year 2024, but President López Obrador asked us to make prepayments for 2025, which, as you know better than us, perhaps, is fraught with more uncertainty compared to the year 2024 and 2023, then, we are making debt prepayments.

We are, for that reason, concluding these large projects that consume a lot of capital expenditure in the course of this administration still in 2024. And, for that reason, the deficit figure is also raised and we are also leaving intact the mechanisms that are available to any government that needs short-term financial resources,” he said.

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