Mexican exports of products grew at a year-on-year rate of 19.2% in November, to a record amount of 45.587 million dollars. It is also the best dynamism of the variable in the last five months, according to figures published on Friday by the National Institute of Geography and Statistics (Inegi).
In particular, the automotive industry recovered, after a fall in the previous month due to the shortage of semiconductors, with a rise of 13.6% in November, to 13,627 million.
“The figures for this month are good news for one of the most important drivers of activity in our country, because after several months of disruption, global value chains seem to be back on track,” said Marcos Arias, analyst at Grupo Financiero Monex.
Conversely, imports were for 45,698.7 million dollars, an advance of 29.6%, with which Mexico registered a deficit of 111.7 million.
With series adjusted for seasonality, in November 2021 total merchandise exports reported a monthly growth of 5.67%, which was the net result of an advance of 6.44% in non-oil exports and a decrease of 4.74% in oil companies.
On the other hand, total imports had an increase of 0.89%, which was derived from the combination of a 1.32% increase in non-oil imports and a 2.65% decrease in oil companies.
Exports of manufactured products reached 40.234 million dollars in November of this year, which represented an increase of 16.8%, year on year.
The most important annual expansions were observed in exports of steel products (108.2%), machinery and special equipment for various industries (21.6%), food, beverages and tobacco (18.2%), automotive products (13.6%) ) and electrical and electronic equipment and appliances (6.4 percent).
In turn, the annual advance in exports of automotive products was derived from increases of 10.4% in sales channeled to the United States and 31.2% in those directed to other markets.
At the same time, the value of agricultural and fishing exports in the reference month was 1,820 million dollars, an amount that implied an annual increase of 21.9 percent.
The most important annual growths were registered in exports of avocado (48.5%), fish, crustaceans and molluscs (46.4%), edible fruits and fruits (20.8%), peppers (10.1%) and fresh legumes and vegetables (7.8 percent).
In contrast, the most relevant annual setbacks occurred in frozen shrimp exports (8.3%) and tomato (0.1 percent).
As for extractive exports, these were located at 754 million dollars with an annual decrease of 1.3 percent. In the period January-November 2021, the value of total exports totaled 446.532 million dollars, which meant an annual increase of 19.4 percent.
Said rate was a reflection of advances of 17.3% in non-oil exports and 68.5% in oil exports.
In November 2021, the value of oil exports was 2,779 million dollars. This amount was made up of 2.3 billion dollars of crude oil sales and 479 million dollars of exports of other petroleum products.
In that month, the average price of the Mexican crude oil export mix stood at 74.82 dollars per barrel, a figure higher by 0.36 dollars compared to the previous month and 35.54 dollars compared to November 2020.
Regarding the volume of crude oil exported, it stood at 1,025 million barrels per day in the reference month, higher than the 0.936 million barrels per day in October, but lower than the 1,171 million barrels per day in November 2020.
The omron factor
According to analysts, going forward, the foreign trade outlook is subject to high uncertainty due to the spread of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 in the final months of the year.
“The timing of the Omicron variant would be unfortunate, as it could interrupt the momentum of the recovery of exports, which will keep the growth potential biased downward,” said Marcos Arias, from Grupo Financiero Monex.
Just last week, the World Trade Organization reported that the volume of world merchandise trade decreased 0.8% in the third quarter of 2021, after four consecutive quarters of strong expansion.
The decline was mainly due to disruptions in supply chains, shortages of production inputs and the increase in Covid-19 cases that weighed down on trade growth.
However, the appearance of the Omicron variant appears to have tipped the balance of risks down, increasing the possibility of a more negative outcome.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx