The exports from Mexico recorded a year-on-year drop of 1% in Augustaffected by losses of 26.6% in oil companies and 3.3% in automotive companies, reported this Friday the Inegi.
With this, total product exports from Mexico fell to 51,915.5 million dollars, oil companies to 2,249.4 million and automotive companies to 16,358.4 million.
Mexico has remained the main trading partner of the United States in 2024, a position that it reached in 2023 in that market, where it allocates just over 80% of its external merchandise sales. But the US economy will foreseeably tend to slow down, representing a demand challenge for Mexican export companies.
For its part, Mexico’s total imports increased 5.7% in August, to 56,783.5 million dollars, resulting in a country’s trade deficit of 4,868 million dollars.
The value of the oil exports In August it resulted from 1,723 million dollars in crude oil sales and 527 million dollars in exports of other petroleum products.
In that month, the average price of the Mexican crude oil export mix stood at $72.24 per barrel, a figure lower by $2.62 compared to the previous month and $4.64 lower than that of August 2023.
Regarding the volume of crude oil exported, it stood, in the reference month, at 0.769 million barrels per day, lower than the level of 0.817 million barrels per day in July and the level of 1.112 million barrels per day in August 2023.
According to the Bank of Mexico, as of the second quarter of 2024, between April and May, Mexico supplied 16.5% of the external demand for manufactured goods in the United States, which represented an annual increase of 0.7 percentage points.
During the second quarter, Mexican trade flows benefited from greater external demand, mainly from the United States, due to the recovery of its industrial production in sectors linked to Mexican exports, as well as the increase in light vehicle sales in the United States. For their part, merchandise imports grew due to the dynamism of the domestic market, such as the strong demand for capital and consumer goods.
From January to July 2024, US imports of goods grew at a year-over-year rate of 4.6%, while Mexico’s total exports increased 4.3 percent.
In August 2024, the drop in the value of Mexican merchandise exports resulted from a 26.6% decrease in oil exports and a 0.6% increase in non-oil exports. Within non-oil exports, those directed to the United States advanced 2.2% at an annual rate and those channeled to the rest of the world decreased 7.7 percent
In the reference month, exports of manufactured products amounted to 47,431 million dollars, which represented an annual growth of 0.6 percent.
The most important increases were observed in exports of machinery and special equipment for various industries (15.5%), mining and metallurgy products (4.2%), and professional and scientific equipment (4.1%). and food, beverages and tobacco (3.3 percent).
For their part, exports of automotive products registered an annual drop of 3.3%, which reflected decreases of 0.7% in sales channeled to the United States and 17.4% in those directed to other markets.
In the eighth month of the current year, the value of the agricultural exports and fishing was 1,431 million dollars, an amount that implied an annual decline of 2.0 percent.
The most important reductions were recorded in exports of fruits and edible fruits (29.2%), citrus fruits (17.6%), fish, crustaceans and mollusks (13.5%), peppers (10.7%) and fresh legumes and vegetables ( 6.3 percent).
In contrast, the most relevant annual increases occurred in exports of cattle (37.8%) and tomato (16.4%). Extractive exports stood at 803 million dollars, with an annual increase of 3.8 percent.
