Mexico City, Jan 29 (Inditop.com/EFE) Mexicans living abroad, most of them in the US, sent home $21.18 billion in remittances last year, a decline of 15.7 percent from 2008, the country’s central bank has said.
The amount of remittances received in November last year was the lowest monthly total since March 2005, but December saw a slight rebound, the Banco de Mexico said.
The year 2009 can be considered the worst year in history for remittances from abroad since the Mexican government started keeping figures in 1995, Lucia Martin, an analyst with Ixe bank, told Efe.
“Despite the negative performance last year, remittances remain the second most important source of currency for Mexico (behind oil exports), by being more defensive than the rest of the external flows,” Martin said Wednesday in a report co-written with Ixe colleague Luis Flores.
The financial crisis in the US, the drastic decline in key economic sectors for Mexican immigrants – like construction – in that country, influenced the poor showing for remittances back to Mexico.
By far, most of the remittances Mexico receives come from the US, home to 12 million Mexicans – about half of them undocumented immigrants – and millions more descendants of Mexican immigrants.
Ixe forecasts that in 2010 remittances will recover in tandem with an economic takeoff in the US.
Money from relatives abroad represents close to 19 percent of total income for urban Mexican households and 27 percent for rural households, according to official figures.
