MEXICO: Production Up

Bareheaded in the sunshine, President Adolfo Ruiz Cortines stood and waved one morning last week as his open Packard purred past more than 1,000.000 shouting citizens of Mexico City. At the Chamber of Deputies the President launched into his yearly report on the state of Mexico. By custom established in his four previous reports, the President spoke in his flat voice for more than three hours. But from time to time he dropped hard facts of progress that stood out like milestones. Items:

¶Gross national product for 1956 was more than $7.5 billion, up 12% from the previous record year. Production of most foodstuffs was up, with bumper crops of wheat, sugar and beans. Livestock production climbed 11% in 1956; fish nets bulged 48% fatter.

¶The budget was neatly balanced; in the first six months of 1957 half the year's $606 million had been spent.

¶Public education expenditures are more than double those in 1953. During the past year, 1,353 primary schools were built and 270,000 illiterate adults were taught to read and write.

Ruiz Cortines did not pretend that the picture was uniformly bright. From September 1956 to June 1957 the country piled up an unfavorable trade balance of $55.8 million, although, said the President, 82% of it was the result of temporary expenditures (spare machine parts, industrial equipment) necessary for economic expansion. Even excluding Indian communities, 300,000 children have no schools and one out of every two Mexicans is still illiterate. The population of the Federal District, now 4.5 million, will probably hit 7,000,000 by 1966, causing serious food, water and school shortages. And because of drought and population increase, corn-eating Mexico has been forced to import corn from the U.S. for its tortillas, tacos and enchiladas.