Pena Nieto was scheduled to address the media at 11 a.m. local time (12 pm EST) at the presidential residence.
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One of Pena Nieto’s closest advisers and confidants, Videgaray handed in his resignation, in a move observers said was linked to the unpopular decision to invite Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to visit Mexico.
Trump said at a joint news conference after his meeting with Pena Nieto that his demand that Mexico pay for a wall along the United States border had not been discussed. She called Trump’s quick stop in Mexico City “an embarrassing global incident”.
Videgaray, 48, is an economist and former investment banker with a masters from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Ph.D. from Yale University, who has overseen the country’s finances since September 2012.
The visit was highly criticized by Mexicans, with many saying that it was a betrayal and a humiliation to the country to have Trump there.
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Meanwhile, Mexico was criticised for appearing to meddle in the USA presidential election process, and Nieto was forced to repeatedly defend the decision of inviting the presidential nominees.
Both men were embroiled in conflict-of-interest scandals in late 2014, after Pena Nieto’s wife and Videgaray were found to have acquired property from a major government contractor.
Pena Nieto said he had accepted Videgaray’s resignation and replaced him with social development minister Jose Antonio Meade, a former foreign and finance minister.
Polls show the main hopefuls for 2018 face a tough battle, with Osorio Chong leading prospective PRI contenders.
However, “it is up to the government to tighten its belt, without affecting the people”, said Nieto, adding “there will be no new taxes nor increases to existing ones”.
The wall proposal has been criticized widely and fiercely in Mexico.
Mexico’s economy contracted in the second quarter for the first time in three years.
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Videgaray, who pushed through a controversial tax increase in 2013 and championed the opening of the nation’s oil industry after 75 years of state monopoly as a way to boost growth, isn’t taking another post in the administration, ministry spokeswoman Claudia Algorri told Bloomberg News on Wednesday, citing no reason for the departure.
