Markets exaggerate Mexico's oil price dependence, which hits peso-IMF

Markets have exaggerated Mexico's dependence on the price of oil, sending the peso to a series of record lows, Alejandro Werner, director for the Western Hemisphere Department at the International Monetary Fund said on Friday.

Mexico's currency has tumbled 7 percent this year, hit by a collapse in international oil prices that have reached 13-year lows.

Werner said Mexico is "clearly" no longer primarily an oil-producing country, as net exports of the commodity are low and government reliance on its sale has declined.

"Markets are exaggerating Mexico's dependence on oil prices" Werner said in a press conference in Washington broadcast on the Internet. "We are seeing some market overreaction to oil price moves."

Last November, Mexico exported US$1.6 billion in exports of crude oil and refined oil products, a tiny fraction of that month's total US$31 billion in exports, according to the government's statistical agency INEGI.

The IMF expects Mexico's economy, Latin America's second largest, to have grown by 2.5 percent last year, above the 2.25 percent notched in 2014. The fund sees Mexican growth reaching 2.6 percent in 2016.