Acapulco, Mexico - Bank of Mexico Governor Agustin Carstens said Thursday that Mexico has held up well throughout the global financial crisis, with the country en route to posting its third consecutive year of economic expansion.

In the current global context, the sustained growth of the Mexican economy is "notable," Carstens said, reiterating expectations that gross domestic product will expand this year by just under 4 percent. The Mexican economy grew 3.9 percent last year after having expanded 5.5 percent in 2010.

Carstens was addressing the annual Mexican bank convention in Acapulco.

Carstens described the economic growth that Mexico has achieved in recent years as a "solid platform" for even faster growth in the future, while discarding the idea of adopting a more expansive monetary policy to spur growth, saying that such policies only contribute to inflation.

Yet "excessive" policy relaxing abroad could result in Mexico having a more strict monetary policy than desired, Carstens said.

In its April 27th monetary-policy decision, the Bank of Mexico left the overnight lending rate target at 4.5 percent and said it could consider rate cuts in the future if international financial markets stabilize. Many analysts took that to mean the weaker peso that was keeping the bank from lowering borrowing costs.

In Mexico City the peso closed at 13.8220 to the dollar on Thursday, having lost around 8 percent of its value against the greenback over two months as the euro-zone debt crisis roiled markets.

Carstens emphasized that the peso's recent slide is a result of external factors, and that it comes in spite of the country's solid economic fundamentals. In addition to economic growth, Mexico has a record-high level of foreign reserves and a conservative 33 percent debt-to-GDP ratio.

Record low interest rates, meanwhile, have translated into lower financing costs for the federal government and Mexican companies, Carstens noted. And Mexican banks are well-capitalized; the average capitalization level for Mexican banks is 15.7 percent.

Now, the challenge ahead for Mexico involves reinforcing domestic drivers of economic growth and translating advances in stability into a stage of growth for the entire Mexican population, Carstens said.