Mexico's central bank cut interest rates for the first time since 2006 on Friday to boost the country's slowing economy as it inches toward recession. The bank lowered its benchmark lending rate 50 basis points to 7.75 percent. It had resisted changing its rate since August in an effort to balance slowing growth and rising inflation, which reached a seven-year high of 6.5 percent in 2008.
Price gains should start slowing this month, though, as the economic downturn deepens and Mexico's government freezes gasoline prices and slashes electricity and natural gas costs, the bank said in a statement announcing its decision.
Growth slowed to a projected 1.8 percent in 2008, and central bank president Guillermo Ortiz has suggested it could be negative this year
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