Economics: Recent positive gross fixed investment figures should be taken with caution
Gross fixed investment posted its first annual increase in April 2026 (5.1%) after 20 consecutive months of decline — a figure hailed in official media as a sign of recovery, even though the January-April cumulative figure remains negative (-1.0%) and starts from a very low base of comparison. That rebound is explained almost entirely by two atypical components: residential construction and public construction investment; once these are excluded, real growth in gross fixed investment would be below 1.0%, a very different picture from the reported 5.0%.
Residential construction grew 16.7% in the month with marked volatility (it had fallen -8.3% the previous month), while machinery and equipment — a more direct indicator of firms' willingness to expand installed capacity — remains weak, with growth of just 0.9% for the month and a cumulative decline of -4.8%. This contrast suggests there is no broader increase in the propensity to invest, but rather a specific and possibly overestimated phenomenon in residential construction, attributable to methodological difficulties in measuring spending on self-built housing and renovations among low-income households and in the informal economy.
This reading is reinforced when contrasted with other sources: ENEC reports a -6.3% decline in the value of residential construction output (January-April), running counter to the official investment figure; total mortgage credit is virtually stagnant (0.2% real annual growth); commercial bank credit for housing has slowed to just 1%; and Infonavit and FOVISSSTE show flat or negative growth, with Infonavit's loan balance falling -5.1% in March alone. In addition, both consumer confidence regarding home purchases and business confidence in the construction sector show downward trends.
In the case of public construction investment, there is a significant discrepancy between INEGI, which reports a cumulative increase of 7.7% through April, and the Ministry of Finance (SHCP), which records a -18.4% decline over the same period; INEGI attributes this to methodological and coverage differences, although these do not account for a gap of this magnitude.
In conclusion, once residential and public construction are excluded, gross fixed investment remains virtually stagnant. The reported rebound does not reflect a genuine improvement in investor confidence, and factors such as insecurity, the rule of law, regulatory uncertainty stemming from recently approved constitutional reforms, and risks arising from the USMCA renegotiations continue to constrain a favorable climate for long-term investment.
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