MEXICO CITY, April 2 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Central Bank of Mexico (Banxico) announced that the amount of remittances flowing into the country in the first 2 months of 2024 reached more than 9.08 billion USD – a new record high for this period and an increase of 3.4 billion USD. % over the same period last year.
Banxico’s statistical report showed that the average amount of remittances sent home by each Mexican abroad in the past 2 months reached 386 USD/month, an increase of 3.4% compared to the same period in 2023.
The number of remittance transactions to the country in Latin America’s second largest economy increased by 0.3%, of which the majority were electronic transfers. In February 2024 alone, Mexico received more than 4.51 billion USD in remittances, an increase of 3.8% over the same period last year.
However, Banxico also said that people in this Latin American country transferred 218 million USD abroad in the first 2 months of 2024, an increase of 32.7% over the same period last year.
Despite the increase in cash flow to Mexico, BBVA Bank (Spain) warned that the proportion of remittances contributing to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Latin America’s second largest economy has decreased from 4 % down to 3.5% in the period 2022-2023 due to the strong increase in the value of the Mexican Peso currency compared to the USD.
In 2023, Mexico collected a record amount of remittances with more than 63.4 billion USD, an increase of 8.4% compared to 2022. This is the 10th consecutive year that remittances sent to Mexico have increased.
According to the World Bank (WB), Mexico is the second largest recipient of remittances in the world, just behind India. This cash flow is Mexico’s second largest source of foreign currency, after automobile exports, and brings in more revenue than the agricultural sector, which contributes 3% to GDP in this country of 130 million people.
According to the Center for Latin American Monetary Studies (Cemla), about 4.9 million households and 11.1 million adults in Mexico receive remittances from relatives abroad. — NNN-AGENCIES
