INEGI: Gross Fixed Investment Contracted 6.6%, Driven by Decline in Public Spending

ByClara Zepeda

This article by Clara Zepeda originally appeared in the March 5, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Mexico City. Investment in facilities, machinery and equipment in Mexico, which produces goods and services, contracted by 6.6 percent annually in 2025, affected by the decline in public construction and private machinery and equipment, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI).

With seasonally adjusted figures, to make periods more comparable due to calendar effects, the Monthly Indicator of Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF), which represents the value of durable goods acquired by production units for use during the production process, averaged 103.5 points at the close of 2025, representing its first decline in four years, after the 17.8 percent drop in 2020.

The lag persisted in machinery and equipment, both domestic (with a 10.1 percent annual contraction last year) and imported (with a 7.6 percent annual decline). Construction also experienced a decline, registering a 4.6 percent drop in 2025 compared to 2024, with investment in non-residential construction (which is heavily linked to public works) plummeting 14.7 percent annually in 2025. However, the overall decline in construction was offset by a surge in residential construction, which grew by 8.1 percent annually last year.

In original figures, without any statistical processing, between January and December 2025, gross fixed investment registered a drop of 6.7 percent annually, with almost all of its categories contracting.

Affected mainly by the collapse of public construction, which contracted 28.9 percent annually in 2025; and of private investment in machinery and equipment, which fell 10.5 percent in 2025 compared to 2024.

The National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi) reported that non-residential construction grew 8.2 percent year-on-year last year. However, the performance of machinery and equipment remained weak, with a 9 percent year-on-year decline: investment in domestically produced equipment fell 10.2 percent, affected by the decline in transportation equipment (13.2 percent), and investment in imported equipment fell 8.2 percent, with a 13.7 percent contraction in transportation equipment.