Mexico City, Feb 2 (IANS/EFE) Mexico received a total of $21.27 billion in remittances in 2010, which signifies a small increase of 0.12 percent over the year before, the country’s central bank said.
‘This indicates that remittances barely managed to halt the decline that occurred in 2009 and their recovery has been slow. Remittances depend chiefly on employment in the United States, where the outlook continues to be complicated,’ a report by the Mexican bank Ixe said Tuesday.
Remittances constitute the second largest source of foreign currency for Mexico after oil sales.
During December, the flow of remittances to Mexico was $1.7 billion, representing an increase of 9.1 percent over the same month in 2009.
The average remittance stood at $302.51 during the last month of 2010.
Analysts at Ixe estimate that remittances will grow by 5.77 percent in 2011, with a final total of some $22.5 billion, thanks to the recovery of the labour market in the US that began at the end of last year.
The Mexican peso has seen a strong appreciation in recent weeks, which negatively affects the purchasing power of Mexicans who receive remittances from the US.
Remittances are a fundamental source of income for many Mexican families and stimulate the domestic market.
Around 12 million Mexicans are estimated to live in the US, half of them undocumented.
–IANS/EFE
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