• DROP: The coronavirus crisis in the US will impact immigrant remittances to Mexico causing them to fall by 17% in 2020 but it’s still too early to know when will they recover due to uncertainties around the economic sectors that will be most affected, according to BBVA Research.
• NUMBERS: Despite a slower annual growth rate, remittances of Mexican immigrants abroad reached a historic high of US $36 billion in 2019. The analysts forecast for 2020 is now US $29.9 billion. Remittances will only go back to 2019 levels sometime between 2023 and 2028.
• NO DOUBT: “Without a doubt, the Mexican population residing in the US will be impacted, as will the sending of remittances to relatives and acquaintances in Mexico”, analysts at BBVA Research said. Mexico’s central bank reported Wednesday a total of US 2.6 in remittances in February.
• STATES: Among the Mexican states that are most at risk from a drop in remittances are the northern state Zacatecas, the western state of Michoacán and the southern state of Oaxaca where remittances are larger than a 10% share of each states’s GDP.
