Monterey, N.L.; The reopening of the US borders will lead to an increase in sales of companies in border cities, especially in the United States, an increase that will be gradual, but it will not reach the prosperity that it achieved before the epidemic, due to the decrease in the purchasing power of, said Jorge Moreno, a professor at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Nuevo Leon. The Independent (UANL), for El Economista.
On November 8, access to trade between the United States and Mexico reopened. He said the outlook for growth in the trade sector is that with the reopening, the level of merchandise exchange that existed before the pandemic will gradually recover.
“Despite the fact that 20 months of closure of trade in major cities, such as McAllen, Texas, it is expected that sales will gradually increase and that this boom due to the opening of the land borders will increase by 30% in their sales.”
In the context, he noted that the President of the International Chamber of Commerce in McAllen, Carlos Marin, said that sales fell by 65% in 2020 due to traffic restrictions on international bridges.
“The impact on trade in US border cities has been very serious, jeopardizing the level of business sustainability in the border region,” the academic warned.
Although an increase in the purchasing power of the Monterey people is expected due to Christmas bonuses or credit, two factors that may affect trade in US cities are the exchange rate variance and the good ending, which is the expectation for Black Friday
Daytona San Diego
Domingo Ramos Medina, Treasurer of the National College of Economists, and Director of Asesores Stratego, commented that Mexico’s northern border has a comparative advantage by having the United States, its main trading partner, as a neighbour.
“Particularly at the Tijuana-San Diego border, it is the world’s busiest checkpoint, with an average of 50 million crossings per year, which during 2020 (the year of confinement) was reduced by 36%, according to Customs and Border Protection. Air tickets have also been affected ( -29%), land corridor (-45%), road capacity (-55%), tourism (-60%), medical tourism (-40%) and shopping centers (-30%). deepen.
Instead, Tijuana commerce benefited because citizens could not cross into the United States to go shopping. It is estimated that half of the residents of this city have a visa and many of them work in San Diego, California.
“With the reopening, it is estimated that many people will begin to cross and with it the San Diego economy, which is affected because a large part of its sales come from Mexicans who go shopping,” Domingo Ramos stressed.
The National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Laboratory of Analysis in Trade, Economics and Business calculates that the economic leakage from the crossings was $900 million a week, 600 million gold from Mexico to the United States and 300 million from the north. To the south.
In 2020, the Mexican trade balance ended positive, but exports and imports decreased compared to 2019; This year, we have a trade deficit of $9.269 million, from January to September 2021, the Asesores Stratego director said.
