MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s economy entered a recession and contracted 0.1% in 2019, the first year of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s six-year term, according to government figures reported Tuesday that confirmed preliminary data from last month.

Moody’s Analytics analyst Alfredo Coutiño wrote in a report that economic activity declined steadily declined over four consecutive quarters last year, qualifying for the technical definition of a recession — “certainly a moderate contraction, but in the end it is a recession.”

Mexico’s economy typically decelerates in the first year of a political transition, Coutiño wrote, but last year’s performance was lower than what was seen in the inaugural years of López Obrador’s previous two predecessors.

It was also well short of initial forecasts that Mexico’s economy would grow 2% last year.

Analysts say policies such as the cancellation of infrastructure projects — like a partially built new airport for the capital that the president is replacing by converting a military base to the north — and revision of energy contracts have spurred investor uncertainty and reticence. And a government austerity program pushed by the famously fiscally ascetic López Obrador hurt consumer spending and slowed the economy as well, according to Coutiño.

Budget normalization and the beginning of a national infrastructure program should pull Mexico out of recession in 2020 and to modest growth around 1%, he added, but “investment will not accelerate until the government implements measures to restore confidence and credibility.”

López Obrador has maintained that Mexico’s economy is solid and rejects criticism of his policies. He touts projects such as a planned “Mayan train” railway through southeastern states that he says will lift up some of Mexico’s poorest communities. López Obrador has also pushed social programs especially for the young, elderly and indigenous, and an ambitious tree-planting program, and their benefit to individual and family economies.

Earlier this month, Mexico’s central bank lowered its benchmark interest rate by a quarter-point to 7%, seeking to stimulate the sluggish economy and in response to global uncertainty including the effects of the COVID-19 disease outbreak.