El Paso Braces As Global Recession Punches Mexico

By ABC-7 Reporter Martin BartlettEL PASO — Lately any sale is a welcome sale for Lorenzo Rodriguez.

He explained in Spanish that he misses the days when rivers of people passed his snack stand at South El Paso Street and Fourth Avenue.

Those days were better than today, he continued, thanks to a the seemingly never-ending supply of people and pesos pumping life into South El Paso.

It’s no surprise that El Paso’s economy is tied much more closely to Mexico City and Chihuahua than to Washington, D.C., and Austin.

But what may surprise you, is just how bad things are getting economically just across the border and the harsh economic reality in Mexico threatens to spill across the border.

Mexico’s gross domestic product — which measures the entire country’s economic activity — shrunk by nearly five percent in recent months.

The peso’s value is down 30 percent against a dollar that’s weakening, too, solidifying the slump.

Those empty pockets can also translate into empty parking places at shopping centers in El Paso, especially those that have for years capitalized on proximity to Juarez.

“The global economy is affecting Juarez — lower employment — which in turn affects El Paso,” said Alan Russell, the head of a maquilla group with plants in El Paso and Juarez.

He and other local leaders told a crowd at UTEP that they’re still bullish about El Paso’s economic strategy.