The table shows the destinations of Mexico’s major export flows, excluding petroleum-related exports, for the first five months of 2014. (All data from Pro-Mexico.) It is no surprise that Mexico’s two main export partners are the USA and Canada, its partners in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), but the other countries in the list are far harder to guess, and even most economists would struggle to get them in the right order!
Mexico’s leading exports by country, Jan-May 2014 (Pro-Mexico, 2014)
Spain, on account of its colonial dominance and shared language, has long been a major destination for Mexican exports, whereas China (#4 on the list) is a recent entry, and one that has risen rapidly in importance for a wide variety of products. The other Asian countries on the list of the top 15 export destinations are Japan, India and South Korea.
All the remaining top 15 destinations for Mexican exports are in either Europe or Latin America.
In terms of the items exported, vehicles of various categories clearly lead the way by a wide margin, while various electrical or electronic items (telephones, televisions, computers) are also important. It appears that Japanese consumers must like Mexican pork, since that is Mexico’s leading export to Japan.
And who would have guessed that Mexico also exports significant quantities of iron and steel waste to India, or lead minerals to Italy?
For more details of Mexican exports, and a link to an interactive webpage about Mexico’s foreign trade since 1964, see our previous post Trends in Mexico’s foreign trade and Economic Complexity.
Related posts:
- Mexico’s 2013 avocado harvest and exports
- Mexico exports almost all vehicles it produces, but imports new cars (Jan 2013)
- Mexico’s footwear industry: imports and exports
- Mexico’s top 10 agriculture-related exports (Aug 2010)
- Copper products, exports and handicrafts in Mexico (Aug 2010)
- NAFTA 20 years on: success or failure?