Banxico's autonomy cannot mean blind obedience to Wall Street

New York's financial press never tires of praising the "prudence" of the Bank of Mexico (Banxico, the country's central bank), applauding its decision to keep the official interest rate at elevated levels to support the value of the so-called "super peso."

Yet what Wall Street analysts call monetary prudence amounts to a real brake on the real economy of Mexico's small and medium-sized enterprises, which must pay bank credit rates above 18% a year to finance their production.

Keeping interest rates artificially high to attract short-term speculative capital benefits foreign financial investors who engage in currency arbitrage, but it suffocates domestic agriculture and greatly raises the cost of financing public works.

Commercial credit to SMEs is paralyzed, forcing thousands of small business owners to turn to informal loan sharks to keep their daily operations running. A monetary policy focused exclusively on pleasing international financial markets ends up punishing the country's internal productive apparatus.

Banxico's constitutional autonomy should be understood as the sovereign capacity to design a monetary policy oriented toward productive development and the creation of formal domestic employment, and not as blind obedience to inflation expectations set by New York banks.

It is essential to open a national debate on the dual mandate of the central bank so that, in addition to controlling prices, the institution assumes the legal commitment to foster real economic growth and accessible credit.