High Cost of Living Reorients Mexicans

Mexico, Aug 15 (Prensa Latina) The upward trend in food prices in recent months has reoriented Mexicans' consumption and reduced retail sales as a consequence.


It is better to buy food than spending money in clothes and shoes, or other lasting goods, said Juan Pedro Treviño, board member of the Mexican Institute of Executives and Finances.



Economic analyst Lourdes Rocha said the sale decrease in departmental, specialized and self-service stores answers straight to inflation increase.



Sales of clothes and shoes decreased 10.5 percent in July, when general merchandise sales experienced a 5.8 percent fall in relation to the same period of 2007, the National Self-Service and Departmental Store Association reported.



Mexico's informal economy has swelled in the latter year, reorienting around 650,000 Mexicans towards joining its ranks as a way to survive, the INEGI (National Statistics and Geography Institute) reported on Friday.



The authority said that only a third of 960,000 people that found jobs in the last 12 months were employed in the formal economy.



Street sales are still the only way out to millions of Mexicans that look for jobs each year, as part of the economically active population.



The INEGI revealed that the number of employees in the informal economy reached 12,100,000 people by the end of the first half of 2008, and there are five million other Mexicans that remain unemployed.



ef iom tpa

http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID={236E632A-1B88-49AC-8819-6DA13C6CC328})&language=EN