Nineteen turning points, each dated as precisely as its sources allow, each with the numbers it moved where the data reach that far. The chart puts them on the long line of Mexico's growth; the list explains them.
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Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (updated 8 Oct 2026; CC BY 4.0)
↔ Swipe sideways to see the whole chart.
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (updated 8 Oct 2026; CC BY 4.0)
| Year | Real GDP growth % | Inflation % |
|---|---|---|
| 1960 | 4.9 | |
| 1961 | 5.0 | 1.6 |
| 1962 | 4.7 | 1.2 |
| 1963 | 8.1 | 0.6 |
| 1964 | 11.9 | 2.3 |
| 1965 | 7.1 | 3.6 |
| 1966 | 6.1 | 4.2 |
| 1967 | 5.9 | 3.0 |
| 1968 | 9.4 | 2.3 |
| 1969 | 3.4 | 3.4 |
| 1970 | 6.5 | 5.0 |
| 1971 | 3.8 | 5.5 |
| 1972 | 8.2 | 4.9 |
| 1973 | 7.9 | 12.1 |
| 1974 | 5.8 | 23.8 |
| 1975 | 5.7 | 14.9 |
| 1976 | 4.4 | 15.8 |
| 1977 | 3.4 | 29.1 |
| 1978 | 9.0 | 17.5 |
| 1979 | 9.7 | 18.2 |
| 1980 | 8.8 | 26.4 |
| 1981 | 9.6 | 27.9 |
| 1982 | 0.0 | 58.9 |
| 1983 | -4.6 | 101.9 |
| 1984 | 3.5 | 65.4 |
| 1985 | 1.9 | 57.7 |
| 1986 | -3.9 | 86.2 |
| 1987 | 2.1 | 131.8 |
| 1988 | 1.2 | 114.2 |
| 1989 | 3.6 | 20.0 |
| 1990 | 5.3 | 26.7 |
| 1991 | 4.0 | 22.7 |
| 1992 | 3.6 | 15.5 |
| 1993 | 2.9 | 9.8 |
| 1994 | 4.4 | 7.0 |
| 1995 | -5.9 | 35.0 |
| 1996 | 6.2 | 34.4 |
| 1997 | 7.2 | 20.6 |
| 1998 | 6.2 | 15.9 |
| 1999 | 2.8 | 16.6 |
| 2000 | 5.0 | 9.5 |
| 2001 | -0.5 | 6.4 |
| 2002 | -0.2 | 5.0 |
| 2003 | 1.2 | 4.5 |
| 2004 | 3.6 | 4.7 |
| 2005 | 2.1 | 4.0 |
| 2006 | 4.8 | 3.6 |
| 2007 | 2.1 | 4.0 |
| 2008 | 0.9 | 5.1 |
| 2009 | -6.3 | 5.3 |
| 2010 | 5.0 | 4.2 |
| 2011 | 3.4 | 3.4 |
| 2012 | 3.6 | 4.1 |
| 2013 | 0.9 | 3.8 |
| 2014 | 2.5 | 4.0 |
| 2015 | 2.7 | 2.7 |
| 2016 | 1.8 | 2.8 |
| 2017 | 1.9 | 6.0 |
| 2018 | 2.0 | 4.9 |
| 2019 | -0.4 | 3.6 |
| 2020 | -8.4 | 3.4 |
| 2021 | 6.0 | 5.7 |
| 2022 | 3.7 | 7.9 |
| 2023 | 3.1 | 5.5 |
| 2024 | 1.4 | 4.7 |
| 2025 | 0.6 | 3.8 |
Mexico tells its creditors it cannot keep paying its foreign debt, opening the Latin American debt crisis. On 1 September the outgoing president announces the nationalisation of the banks. The old model of a closed, oil-financed economy ends here, which is why this record starts in 1982.
Mexico accedes to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the forerunner of the WTO, and begins cutting the tariffs and import permits that had protected its industry since the 1940s.
Government, business and labour sign a pact on wages, prices and the exchange rate to break an inflation that reached 132% that year. Inflation falls to about 20% by 1989.
Mexico reaches the first debt-reduction deal under the Brady Plan: agreed in principle on 23 July 1989 and closed in March 1990, when the U.S. Treasury sold Mexico the zero-coupon bonds that backed the new debt. Sixteen more countries followed.
Three zeros come off the currency: one new peso is worth 1,000 old ones. Every peso figure on this site before 1993 is already restated in new pesos.
The North American Free Trade Agreement, signed on 17 December 1992, takes effect between Mexico, the United States and Canada. In 1993 trade in goods between Mexico and the USA was about $81 billion; the chart on the next page shows what followed.
Banco de México's autonomy, written into Article 28 of the Constitution in 1993, takes effect. Its first duty becomes the stability of the peso's purchasing power.
Invited on 14 April, Mexico becomes the first Latin American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
On 20 December the government widens the peso's band; on 22 December the peso floats. On 31 January 1995 Washington announces a rescue: $20 billion from the U.S. Exchange Stabilization Fund inside an international package of about $50 billion. The economy shrinks in 1995 and inflation returns to about 35%.
Banco de México announces it has fully adopted an inflation-targeting regime, with interim targets on the way to a permanent 3% goal from 2003.
China becomes a member of the World Trade Organization. Over the next decade it competes with Mexico for the same factory jobs and the same American buyers.
The crisis that begins in the U.S. housing market reaches Mexico through trade and remittances. Real GDP falls in 2009 by the amount shown below: the deepest fall in this record until 2020.
A constitutional amendment to Articles 25, 27 and 28 is published, ending the state monopoly over oil and gas that dated from the 1938 expropriation and opening power generation and fuel markets to private and foreign investment.
Formal talks to renegotiate NAFTA begin in Washington, after the U.S. notified Congress in May.
The three leaders sign the replacement agreement in Buenos Aires; a protocol of amendment follows on 10 December 2019.
The new agreement takes effect in the middle of the pandemic year. Article 34.7 sets a joint review on its sixth anniversary. Mexico's real GDP falls in 2020 by the amount shown below, the deepest fall in this record.
For the full year, U.S. trade in goods with Mexico passes trade with Canada and with China. Census Bureau totals for 2023 as first published in February 2024: Mexico $798.8 billion, Canada $774.3 billion, China $575.0 billion (our trade table carries the revised Mexico figure, $797.3 billion).
A constitutional reform providing for judges, magistrates and Supreme Court justices to be chosen by popular vote is published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación and takes effect the next day.
An additional 25% U.S. duty on products of Mexico, ordered on 1 February under emergency-powers law (Executive Order 14194) and paused until 4 March, takes effect; from 12:01 a.m. Eastern time on 7 March, goods that enter under USMCA treatment are exempted.
This timeline ends with the last complete year. Events of the current year are added once the year closes, with their sources, so the record never runs ahead of its evidence.