Product exports from Mexico fall 1.5% in January

Product exports from Mexico totaled $41.957 billion in January 2024, a year-over-year decline of 1.5 percent.

In general, global economic conditions, such as global demand and economic trends in major trading partners, affect Mexican foreign sales.

Mexico ranked as the top trading partner and also the top external supplier of U.S. products in 2023.

Mexico sends around 80% of its total exports of goods to the U.S. market.

Of its total foreign sales in the first month of this year, those corresponding to the oil sector amounted to 2.721 billion dollars, 0.2% more than in the same month of the previous year, according to Inegi data.

Non-oil exports fell 1.7%, year over year, to 39.237 billion dollars.

Mexico has sought to diversify its exports over time, with some progress in industries such as medical devices and instruments, aeronautics and, incipiently, semiconductor chips.

Product exports

The country is already competitive in industries such as automotive, agri-food, electrical and electronics, and household appliances.

Although slowing, Mexico’s exports will grow in the last three years: 18.5% in 2021, 16.9% in 2022 and 2.6% in 2023.

Prior to this streak, product exports from Mexico grew 2.3% in 2019, but then fell 9.3% in 2020, due to the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mexico is favored by its location in North America, because of the high demand represented by the United States and Canada, with no geographically close competitors.

It also benefits from its network of trade agreements with 50 countries, its diversified export base in terms of number of products and its geographic location to sell to Latin America, Europe and Asia.

Within Mexican manufacturing exports, automotive exports decreased at a year-on-year rate of 6.5% in January, to 12.721 billion dollars, while non-automotive exports increased 0.6%, to 23.850 billion dollars.

Agricultural exports were US$1.931 billion (+0.7%) and extractive exports were US$734 million (+12.1%).