EFE.- Mexico received $7,841 million from its citizens residing abroad in the first two months of the year, an increase of 21.4% compared to $6,458 million in the same period a year earlier, the Bank of Mexico reported Friday.
In the first two months of the year, individual remittances averaged $373, up from $347 in the same two-month period in 2021, and the number of transactions increased from 18.62 million to nearly 21.03 million, mostly electronic. Transfers.
Remittances in February amounted to $3,910 million, up 23.3% from $3.171 million in the same month of 2021.
The data was just under $3,931 million in January.
The significant increase in remittances continues the upward trend observed since March 2020, when the $4,000 million figure received at the start of the coronavirus pandemic was first crossed.
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The importance of remittances
Mexico added a total of $51,594 million in remittances in 2021, a record high of 27.06% compared to 2020, when it reached $40,605 million.
In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the volume of remittances in 2020 represented an 11.4% increase compared to $36.438 million in 2019.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has repeatedly thanked the 38 million Mexicans in the United States, calling them “heroes,” and estimating that their remittances benefit nearly 10 million poor families.
This money, which comes mainly from Mexican immigrants living in the United States, represents Mexico’s second largest source of foreign exchange, after auto exports.
For this reason, the government of Mexico is confident that remittances will help lift the country’s economy, which recorded a contraction of 8.2% in 2020.
According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), the Mexican economy grew by 4.8% in 2021, a figure lower than the 6% projected by the government.
In 1995, the first year in which the Bank of Mexico provided results, remittances amounted to $3.672 million (adjusted to the current exchange rate).
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