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Crime in Mexico takes one fifth bite out of GDP: research

Xinhua, April 5, 2017 Adjust font size:

Violent crime in Mexico cost the country nearly 20 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016, according to a study released on Tuesday.

Violence, especially an increase in homicides, cost more than 3 trillion pesos (160 billion U.S. dollars), or 18 percent of last year's GDP, said the 2017 Mexico Peace Index compiled by the Sydney-based Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), which has an office in Mexico City.

The costs were calculated based on the amount of money the government budgets to fight crime and punish criminals, as well as losses and other factors, the IEP said.

In the past 13 years, up to 2016, "federal government expenditure on all violence containment expenditure increased by 120 percent," the study said.

Crime in general worsened in 2016 due to an 18-percent rise in homicides, though the level of crime was still less than that in the record-setting 2011, at the height of Mexico's military war on drugs.

The report also "details four important policy areas instrumental to building high levels of peacefulness: impunity, policing, strategies to reduce homicide rates, and the role of local governments." Endit