OREANDA-NEWS. March 16, 2015. Mexican industrial production shrank in January by the most in over a year, dragged down by dips in manufacturing, construction, and mining in Latin America's No. 2 economy.

Industrial output fell 0.4 percent in January from December, the national statistics agency said on Friday, after contracting by 0.3 percent the prior month. A Reuters poll had forecast a 0.53 percent expansion in January.

The figure marked the biggest drop since September, 2013. Factory production, a component of industrial output, fell 0.1 percent in January from December, after shrinking the prior month. Mexico sends nearly 80 percent of its exports, which are mostly factory goods, to the United States.

Strength in factory output last year had helped offset sluggish domestic demand.

Mining, which includes oil production by state-run company Pemex, shrank by 0.5 percent in January on a monthly basis. The component measuring construction tumbled 1.5 percent in January from the month before.

Compared with a year earlier, industrial output rose 0.3 percent in January compared with a 3 percent rise in December. The Reuters poll had forecast a 2.36 percent rise in January.