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Mexican Finance Minister Agustin Carstens said the 2010 budget, an increase in tax collection and the government’s liquidation of a state power company last month should help the country keep its credit rating.

Fiscal legislation approved by lawmakers this week gave President Felipe Calderon’s government more than half of the new tax revenue it aimed for in its original proposal, Carstens said today in an interview with Bloomberg Television. The tax bill will generate public revenue of more than 1 percent of gross domestic product and help revive the economy, he said.

“We’re very close to what we were aiming for,” Carstens, 51, said at the Bloomberg Economic Forum in Mexico City. “This is a tremendous effort. To make this kind of effort in a recession is really something remarkable.”

Calderon has been under pressure from ratings companies to strengthen public finances as oil production declines and the recession saps tax collection. Standard & Poor’s, which gave Mexico’s foreign-currency long-term debt an investment-grade rating in 2002, said it may cut its current BBB+ credit rating before the end of the year, depending on the tax laws.

Mexican Senator Carlos Navarrete said today that countries shouldn’t be “hostages” to ratings companies. Navarrete is the chamber’s president and a member of the opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution.

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