Mexico’s capital goods imports: record high

Mexico achieved a record in its imports of capital goods in the first four months of 2023, with 17.609 billion dollars, reported Inegi.

The previous all-time high was in the same period of 2022, when these imports totaled 14.473 billion dollars.

Thus, this indicator grew at a year-on-year rate of 21.7 percent.

Importaciones de México

On average, capital goods imports were $11.551 billion from January to April each year over the last decade, from 2014 to 2023.

Capital goods are the set of goods that serve as a means to produce other goods. An example is machinery and transportation equipment.

In all of 2022, Mexico imported capital goods for 48,203 million dollars, an increase of 28.9%, year over year.

Capital Goods

Mexico’s free-market economy contains a mix of modern and old-fashioned industry and agriculture, increasingly dominated by the private sector.

During the first four months of 2023, Mexico imported consumer goods for $27,306.0 million, intermediate goods for $148,699.8 million and capital goods for $17,609.4 million.

Thus, the structure of the value of imports was as follows: intermediate goods (76.8%), consumer goods (14.1%) and capital goods (9.1%).

In this context, according to the timely estimate of GDP as of the first quarter of 2023, economic activity registered an annual growth of 3.9 percent and, with seasonally adjusted figures, increased 1.1 percent quarterly, up from the previous quarter of 0.5 percent.

Based on information from the Global Indicator of Economic Activity (IGAE) in the two-month period from January to February 2023, the economy grew 0.9%, with seasonally adjusted figures.

Internally, the increase in the IGAE was due to the bimonthly growth of 1.4% in services and 0.7% in secondary activities, which offset the bimonthly drop of 4.4% in primary activities.

According to the International Monetary Fund, goods are recorded at the time economic ownership is transferred from the seller to the buyer. The timing of the transfer of ownership could be done progressively, as payments are made in stages or in full at the time of delivery.