Mexico faces a years-long struggle to return to pre-pandemic levels of employment, income and poverty after an expected economic contraction of 9.0 percent in 2020, the IMF warned.

The International Monetary Fund urged the Mexican authorities to do more to boost Latin America's second-largest economy with fiscal and monetary stimulus.

The latest forecast from the Washington-based IMF marked a slight improvement from an earlier projection of a 10.5 per cent slump this year in Mexico, one of the countries hardest-hit by the coronavirus.

But in its latest report, the IMF said that the country's gains over the past decade have been set back, and now “Mexico's long-standing challenge of low growth appears set to worsen.” It forecast that the economy will grow by 3.5pc in 2021, and by close to 2.0pc thereafter, AFP reported.