Mexico is home to 112 million inhabitants (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía INEGI, 2010) and is Latin America's second-largest economy, behind Brazil. The implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), along with a series of open macroeconomic policies during the late-1990s and 2000s, have led Mexico's economy into consistent and steady growth. However, the country's dependence on trade with the U.S., and the effects of the 2008 global economic recession, harmed the Mexican economy. In 2009, the country suffered its deepest recession since the mid-1990s, experiencing a decrease in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 6%. The Mexican economy has since recovered, resulting in GDP growth of 5.4% and 3.9% in 2010 and 2011 respectively, but the lingering effects of the economic recession pose significant difficulties for the Mexican economy and its people.