Remittances To Mexico Drop 11 Percent In February

Fox News Latino, 4/2/2013

Mexico received $1.58 billion in remittances in February, 11.1 percent below the amount recorded in the same month of 2012, the country’s central bank said Monday. This was the eighth straight month in which remittances declined on an inter-annual basis. In the second month of 2013, the average remittance was $293.17, less than the $320.34 in February of 2012, the Bank of Mexico said in its monthly report.

In February, 5.4 million transactions were recorded, most of them electronic transfers. Remittances to Mexico totaled $22.45 billion last year, a decline of 1.57 percent from 2011. Remittances from expatriates are Mexico’s second-largest source of foreign exchange after oil exports and help cover living expenses for millions of households. Most of the money is sent from the United States, where an estimated 12 million Mexicans live, about half of them undocumented migrants.

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Mexican auto industry surpasses remittances (Spanish)

Reforma, 2/12/2013

Ni el petróleo, ni el turismo, ni las remesas: ahora, el mayor ingreso de divisas lo genera la industria automotriz. En 2012, este sector trajo a México 32 mil 244 millones de dólares, lo que fortaleció su liderazgo como el sector que más ingresos aporta al País.

Las divisas netas generadas por la exportación de los vehículos automotores han ido creciendo en los últimos años: las del 2012 fueron 11 por ciento superiores a las de 2011 y 194 por ciento más que las de 2000, según datos del Banco de México. Los autos de mayor exportación fueron el Nuevo Jetta; Fusion; Journey; Silverado 2500; Sentra; RAM 2500 y Versa.

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Three ways U.S. immigration reform might impact Mexico

The Washington Post, 1/31/2013

Now that President Obama and the Senate have put together plans for comprehensive immigration reform, it seems like something might finally be done about this thorny issue. Of the 11 million estimated illegal immigrants in the United States, some 7 million are from Mexico, so any U.S. legislation would have huge impacts there.

Here’s a look at some of them: (1) Possibly more remittances; (2) Likely fewer illegal crossing attempts; (3) More and better migrant labor.

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Remittances to Mexico fell 20% in September compared with last year

Los Angeles Times, 11/1/2012

Remittances to Mexico from abroad fell by more than 20% in September compared with the same month in 2011, according to Mexico’s central bank, a decline that experts said can be partly explained by the reduction in immigrant employment in the United States.

Nearly 11% of all Mexicans live abroad, most of them in the U.S., and the money they send home to family members is one of the country’s most important sources of foreign income, representing about 2% of the country’s gross domestic product.

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Mexico sees 1st big remittances rebound since 2008

Bloomberg-Businessweek, 2/2/12

The amount of money Mexican migrant workers sent home in 2011 increased by 6.86 percent over the year before, the first major rebound in remittances since the 2008 economic downturn, Mexico’s central bank announced.

Remittances totaled just over $22.7 billion in 2011, up from $21.27 billion in 2010, the bank said Wednesday. The 2010 figure represented an increase of just 0.12 percent over the $21.24 billion sent home in 2009. There had been a precipitous 15.5-percent drop in remittances between 2008 and 2009.

“The growth is due to a recovery in U.S. employment, especially among the Latino sector and especially among Mexicans,” said Victor Corona, a migration and remittances expert at the Autonomous University of Zacatecas.

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Wells Fargo Expands Remittances Network In Mexico

Wall Street Journal, 8/26/2010

Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) said Thursday it has nearly doubled the number of locations in Mexico where recipients of remittances, a major source of foreign-exchange inflows, can pick up the money that their relatives send home from the U.S.

Under the agreement with Houston-based Transnetwork Corp., Wells Fargo, of San Francisco, will add more than 4,000 receiving locations, bringing its total to more than 9,000.

With senders of remittances becoming more savvy about exchange rates, transfer costs, convenience, and security, the importance of having more receiving options–such as retail chains that open weekends–is more an issue than market share, Ayala said. The official declined to give Wells Fargo’s share of the Mexican remittances market, but said it is “in the billion-dollar-plus range.”

Remittances to Mexico in the second quarter totaled $5.81 billion, up 3.7% from the same quarter of 2009. The transfers, whiich generate more dollar inflows into Mexico than foreign tourism, fell 16% to $21.18 billion last year after a 3.6% drop in 2008.

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Mexico remittances slump 14.4 pct in Nov yr-on-yr

Reuters, 1/4/10

The amount of cash sent home by Mexican immigrants living abroad sank 14.4 percent in November compared with the same month last year, the central bank said on Monday.

Mexicans sent home $1.495 billion in November in the fifth straight monthly decline. Remittances last touched these levels in February 2005 when Mexicans sent $1.428 billion home.

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Mexican Migrants Sent Home 36 Pct Less in October

Forbes, 12/2/09

MEXICO CITY — Mexican migrants sent home 36 percent less money in October than a year earlier, marking the largest drop since records began being kept in 1996, Mexico’s central bank said Tuesday.

Analysts said the steep drop was another indication that Mexico’s economic recovery will be slow due to its close ties with the United States, which buys 80 percent of Mexican exports in addition to providing work for millions of legal and illegal migrants.

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World Bank Releases its Migration and Remittance Trends 2009 Report

World Bank, 11/5/09

Duration of Mexican migration has increased–return rate has declined–as controls have been tightened at the US-Mexico border.

Remittance flows to South Asia grew strongly in 2008 despite the global economic crisis, but now there are risks that they may slow down in a lagged response to a weak global economy. East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa also face similar risks. By contrast, remittance flows to Latin America and the Caribbean, and Middle East and North Africa have been weaker than expected in 2009; yet, they appear to have reached a bottom already, with the expectation of a recovery in 2010 and 2011.

In all the regions, remittance flows are likely to face three downside risks: a jobless economic recovery, tighter immigration controls, and unpredictable exchange rate movements. Despite these risks, remittances are expected to remain more resilient than private capital flows and will become even more important as a source of external financing in many developing countries. Policy responses should involve efforts to facilitate migration and remittances, to make these flows cheaper, safer and more productive for both the sending and the receiving countries.

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Mexico Institute Andrew Selee Discusses Mexican Immigrants Investing in Their Home Communities

Market Place, 10/12/09

The money that Mexican migrant workers in the U.S. send back home can make a big difference to their communities. Franc Contreras reports from Michoacan on how migrant dollars are helping improve the local landscape.

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