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Dollars sent home from migrants working abroad between January and November 2015 increased 5.44 percent from the same period a year before. (Photo cc info)
A robust flow of remittances to Mexico has returned from the decline marked after the 2008 world economic crisis.
As the new year turned the corner, the official Bank of Mexico reported that dollars sent home from migrants working abroad totaled almost $22.6 billion from January to November 2015, ringing up a 5.44 increase from the similar period in 2014.
The Bank of Mexico’s numbers, however, do not include dollars spent in Mexico by migrants during the heavy December spending period, also a time when migrants able to return to their native country — sometimes in organized caravans of “paisanos” — bring in extra cash.
Some analysts predict the total sum of remittances captured in Mexico will hit the $25 billion mark for 2015. According to La Jornada columnist Enrique Galvan Ochoa, Goldman Sachs and Airpak-Western Union both project Mexico will count $25 billion in remittances for the just-concluded year.
Recovering a very strategic spot in the Mexican economy, migrant remittances in 2015 surpassed direct foreign investment, international tourism and even oil sales as the nation’s top source of foreign exchange. For instance, in comparison with the more than $22.5 billion in remittances registered during the first 11 months of the year, oil sales abroad represented about $17.7 billion in the same time frame.
Rock-bottom oil prices, less-than expected foreign investment in the energy sector, and the plummeting value of the peso in relation to the dollar all work to boost the value of migrant remittances at the beginning of 2016.
On this note, the strong dollar benefits households and individuals getting bucks the United States. In 2015 alone, the value of the Mexican peso dropped by 17 percent.
Sources: Proceso, January 4, 2016. Article by Juan Carlos Cruz Vargas. La Jornada, December 31, 2015; January 4, 2016.