FACTBOX-Steps taken by Mexico during financial crisis

Mon Oct 27, 2008 7:18pm EDT

Oct 27 (Reuters) - Mexico rushed to shore up its reeling financial markets on Monday, pledging additional measures to pump billions of dollars of liquidity into local markets battered by the global financial crisis.

The following are the measures Mexican authorities have taken to counter the effects of the global credit crisis, which began to hit Mexico hard in the last month:

OCT 27

* The Finance Ministry and central bank announce a series of measures including a cutback in long-term government borrowing on the local market and the introduction an interest rate swap mechanism in hopes of reducing volatility in the local bond market.

* Banks will also temporarily be allowed to deal in government securities to their own investment funds.

* Pension fund regulator announces plans to loosen pension fund rules to to allow managers to adjust portfolios more quickly and to avoid fire sales of assets.

OCT 17

* Government-owned development banks offer to partially guarantee 50 billion pesos ($3.9 billion) in short-term corporate debt as market dries up.

OCT 13

* The central bank offers banks additional short-term financing and repurchase loans secured on a wide range of local debt.

OCT 8

* The central bank begins auctions of dollars for the first time in a decade as the peso sees its worst one-day slide since the "Tequila Crisis" of the mid-1990s. Since then, the central bank has spent $13.1 billion, or more than 15 percent of its international reserves, to prop up the peso. (Editing by Richard Chang)

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