Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Mexican President Felipe Calderon comments on economic growth in the third quarter and next year, trade, the labor market and the country’s fiscal situation. He spoke today at the Bloomberg Economic Forum in Mexico City.

On third-quarter growth from the previous quarter:

“In our estimates, the Mexican economy grew 2.7 percent in the third quarter of this year. This result is good news. That means the end of the credit contraction and the recession in our country.”

On 2010 economic growth:

“Our administration thinks that next year the economy will grow by at least 3 percent, and we’re working hard in my government so that the Mexican economy can show an average growth of 5 percent by the end of my term. We are fully committed to make our economic outlook a reality.”

On economic goals:

“My government has a goal, and that is to transform our country. We want to make Mexico a developed country, a fair country with a competitive economy, one able to generate jobs.”

On trade:

“Mexico is not only recovering its exports into the United States, but this year, Mexico extended its share of exports into the United States by one percentage point in just a few months.”

On tax rule changes and oil:

“We have been hit hard in the public finance arena, not only from the crisis but fundamentally from the fall of oil production in our country due to lack of timely policies in the sector. Therefore, in my administration, we had to face not only that downturn of collections but a different structural problem -- that is, a downturn in public income sources because we saw a production decline.”

“We are opening and trailblazing new paths to different contracts so specialized investors and state-of-the-art companies that Mexico needs badly work jointly to engage in exploration and natural gas projects under the wing of Petroleos Mexicanos without compromising our sovereignty or our Mexican territory to exploit hydrocarbons.”

On public finances:

“We are convinced that one of the most important and powerful assets we have is responsible macroeconomic management, to preserve solid economic fundamentals for public finances.”

On employment:

“We instituted a temporary jobs program where we helped low-income individuals. We asked them to help with cleaning highways, trailblazing mountains and fighting wildfires and cleaning archaeological sites. And we were able to create half a million temporary jobs through small community work, for example, cleaning schools when we had swine flu. On the other hand, we protected jobs in the export sector that were the most vulnerable during the crisis. Through the shut-down program, the federal government was willing to pay one-third of a worker’s salary, provided that worker agreed not to receive an additional third and the employer agreed to pay the additional third of the salary. In that way, we were able to avoid massive layoffs.”

“During October, even considering and taking out of the equation the jobs that disappeared when Luz y Fuerza stopped its activities in October, we created 80,000 net jobs in the country, new jobs. Not considering Luz y Fuerza jobs, we would have reached 125,000 new jobs only in October.”

“Starting in June, we have now five consecutive months we see job creation in Mexico with net positive rates.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Emily Schmall in Mexico City at eschmall@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 5, 2009 13:07 EST