S.D. County Remittances to Mexico hit $1.1 Billion
S.D. County remittances to Mexico hit $1.1 billion
By James Giannini
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
October 19, 2007
WASHINGTON – The amount of money that workers in San Diego County send to Mexico has ballooned – reaching $1.1 billion last year from $800 million in 2004, according to a new estimate by the World Bank.
SEAN M. HAFFEY / Union-Tribune
Elliott Giles wired money yesterday to Mexico from Murphy's Market in City Heights. Migrants sent $24.2 billion to Mexico last year.
In most cases, the money was sent to help relatives.
Experts expressed surprise at the magnitude of the money transfers, but they said the amount still represents a fraction of both economies. San Diego's economy is estimated at $120 billion and Mexico's at $840 billion.
The bulk of the $24.2 billion in remittances sent to Mexico last year came from the United States. Roughly $13 billion came from California.
Migrants worldwide sent more than $300 billion to their home countries last year, according to a study released this week by the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the Inter-American Development Bank. That sum surpassed foreign development aid and foreign direct investment and carries major development potential for poor nations if properly channeled.
India took in more remittance money last year than any other nation, $24.5 billion, with Mexico a close second.
In the estimate of formal and informal money transfers worldwide, researchers found that 150 million migrants dispatching a few hundred dollars each sustained millions of families in 162 developing nations. But little of the bounty has fueled economic growth in those nations, because most of it is used for small-scale consumer purchases, the study found.
SEAN M. HAFFEY / Union-Tribune
Jaouad Khadim, manager of Murphy's Market in City Heights, helped Carmen Pavon send money yesterday to family in Veracruz state.
More money goes from San Diego to Baja California than to any other Mexican state. Because of the size and diversity of its economy, Baja California is less dependent on remittances than less-developed Mexican states, said Jeffrey Davidow, president of the Institute of the Americas in San Diego and former U.S. ambassador to Mexico.
“They're much less important to the economy of Baja than they are to the economy in states like Michoacan or Zacatecas,â€
