A worker moves boxes at a cucumber packing plant for export in La Cruz, Sinaloa state, in an archive image. Jeoffrey Guillemard (Bloomberg)
Mexico reduced its trade deficit in October, which reached $252 million in October, the National Institute of Geography and Statistics (Inegi) reported on Monday. In comparison, the deficit for the same month in 2022 was $2,088 million. Mexico exported goods and intermediate products worth $51,973 million and imported goods worth $52,226 million last month.
Exports rose 5.6% year-over-year, largely driven by sales of Mexican cars and auto parts abroad. According to Inegi, the United States was the main recipient. On the other hand, Mexicans imported 1.8% more goods in October than in the same month last year. This is largely due to the strong appreciation of the Mexican currency against the dollar this year, making prices for products abroad more accessible.
“The period was characterized by a weakening of oil prices, stability in transport costs despite certain local disruptions and some shocks in certain sectors, in particular the strike in the automobile sector in the United States,” Banorte analysts wrote in their report on the Inegi data for this Monday. “We believe the peso’s strength will continue to be a catalyst for imports of non-oil goods in an environment where local demand continues to be supported by solid fundamentals.”
Alicia Bárcena of the Mexican Foreign Ministry recently called on the country to make better use of the opportunity presented by the geopolitical tensions between China and the United States, which are leading to a relocation of factories and operations from the Asian country to countries considered ” Allies are considered to be from the USA, such as Mexico. “We don’t understand this window,” Bárcena said Nov. 22 during Mexico’s Foreign Trade Congress. “I say this from my place, the Mexican Foreign Ministry, but I think we don’t understand the depth of nearshoring.”
Bárcena pointed out that Vietnam is a country that benefits greatly from this trend, although it does not have the geographical advantages that Mexico has. “Sometimes I wonder if we in Mexico understand this window of opportunity, sometimes I have the feeling that we don’t,” the Chancellor said, according to national media reports.
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