Mexico’s increasing violence poses a risk to the nation’s sovereign credit rating in the “medium term” and may threaten economic growth, said Mauro Leos, an analyst at Moody’s Investors Service.
Deaths related to drug trafficking have spiked during President Felipe Calderon’s term as the government battles organized crime. Still, Moody’s probably won’t downgrade the country before Calderon’s presidential term ends in 2012, Leos said.
“We are studying the violence to see what impact it has on economic growth and government revenue,” Leos said at a conference in Mexico City. “All the information about the violence until now has been anecdotal. There is no framework in which to discuss the impact of the violence.”
Violence related to organized crime has killed more than 28,000 people since President Felipe Calderon came to office in December 2006. Mexico’s government says violence saps 1 percentage point from gross domestic product annually. Mexico is rated Baa1 by Moody’s.
Eight Mexicans were killed yesterday when armed men threw Molotov cocktails into a bar in Cancun, the resort city known for its white-sand beaches, spring-break festivities and as the site for this year’s global climate-change summit.
In the past two weeks in the northern part of the country, two mayors have been assassinated, a car bomb exploded outside a television station, and 72 migrants were found massacred. A gubernatorial candidate was killed in June.
