Mexico Should Send More Exports Out of North America, Inter-American Development Bank Says

By Jorge Valencia
December 06, 2017

One of the biggest financial institutions in Latin America will tell Mexico in an analysis due out next month that the country should encourage businesses to send more of their goods out of North America, regardless of the current negotiations over trade in the region.

Mexico sends 81 percent of its exports to the U.S., which under the North American Free Trade Agreement has helped the country to increase its output in manufacturing and agricultural sectors, according to the upcoming report from the Inter-American Development Bank.

And the country should now direct more of that potential to other regions, said Sergio Gomez Lora, chief executive officer of the international trade consultancy IQOM and co-author of the report.

"We should be in a position to put some of these electronic components and electronic equipment in non-traditional European markets such as Russia, Switzerland and Norway," Gomez Lora said. The country should also look at Southeast Asian markets such as Japan, South Korea and Singapore, he said.

The U.S., Canada and Mexico’s economies will have close ties with or without NAFTA, Gomez Lora said. But, he added, they just won’t be as mutually beneficial without it.