MEXICO CITY, Dec. 24 (Xinhua) -- Mexican Congress passed the 2019 austerity-driven budget bill early morning on Monday.
The approval was like "a Christmas present," said Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
The 5.8-trillion-peso (about 292 billion-U.S.-dollar) budget cuts the salaries of top government officials and Supreme Court judges.
The budget also re-assigns funding from low-priority areas to the agricultural sector and public universities.
"We should all strive for austerity. No institution should spend excessively. It would even be very significant for the (political) parties to voluntarily give back at least half their prerogatives, so austerity is complete," said the president.
In Mexico, political parties receive millions in government funding.
The budget earmarks funds for key public works projects, including a tourism-oriented Maya Train through southeast states, boosting oil output and building an oil refinery, and improving airport infrastructure. It also covers social programs, such as a monthly pension for elderly Mexicans with no retirement program.
The government's economic forecast for 2019 projects a 2.5-percent expansion in gross domestic product (GDP), a 3.4-percent inflation, an oil output of about 1.8 million barrels per day at a price of 55 U.S. dollars a barrel, and a peso-dollar exchange rate of 20 to one.
