MEXICO CITY, Feb 9 - Inflation in Mexico accelerated in January, official data released on Monday showed, lending support to the central bank's recent decision to keep its policy rate unchanged as it judges that inflation will take longer to return to target.
Annual consumer price inflation rose to 3.79% in the year through January, up from 3.69% in December. That outcome was slightly below the 3.82% median among analysts polled. The core inflation rate - which excludes the most volatile elements of the consumer price basket - increased to 4.52% from 4.33% in December, marking the highest core reading since March 2024.
The start of the year brought a package of fiscal and trade measures that coincided with the uptick in prices. The government implemented new taxes and a higher minimum wage, and it introduced tariffs on imports from China and other mainly Asian countries with which Mexico does not have a free trade agreement. Items explicitly targeted by the new tax increases, including cigarettes and bottled soft drinks, experienced some of the largest price rises.
Last Friday, the Bank of Mexico opted to hold its benchmark interest rate at 7.0% after a sequence of 12 consecutive interest rate cuts. Alongside that decision, the central bank revised its inflation outlook, now projecting that headline inflation will reach the bank's 3% target in the second quarter of 2027. That is a material extension from its prior projection, which had pointed to the third quarter of this year.
Members of the central bank's governing board have signalled that the recent tax and tariff measures are likely to exert upward pressure on prices, but that the effect is expected to be temporary. They have also stressed the need for time to fully assess how those measures will influence the inflation trajectory.
On a monthly basis, consumer prices rose 0.38% in January according to non-seasonally adjusted figures. Core prices advanced 0.60% over the month, underscoring the near-term pickup in underlying inflationary pressures.
The combination of the government's fiscal moves and the central bank's revised forecast frames a more protracted path back to the 3% inflation objective, according to the official statistics and central bank communications released alongside the data.