of the Republic it is believed that the classifications given above are representative of the local import trade. Mexico City, on the contrary, is not a relatively important export center. The articles of export from this district for the calendar year 1921, in the order of their importance are: Silver, gold, books, hides, broom straw, baskets, motion picture films, antiques, quicksilver, garlic, coffee and sarsaparilla root. The total value of exports from this district to the United States for 1921 was $16,237,288 U. S. currency. Of this total $15,153,000 represented silver alone. TRANSPORTATION AND PACKING Mexico City is connected by rail with the seaports of Vera Cruz, and Tampico on the Gulf of Mexico and Manzanillo on the Pacific coast; and with the border points of Ciudad Juarez (El Paso), Piedras Negras (Eagle Pass), Nuevo Laredo (Laredo), and Matamoros (Brownsville). Preferred shipping routes are by steamship to Vera Cruz (or Manzanillo from Pacific coast points), thence by rail to Mexico City; or by all railway route through Laredo, from eastern points and through Ciudad Juarez (El Paso) or Piedras Negras (Eagle Pass) from western points. With regard to packing, the wishes of the importer should be consulted and followed strictly. Ordinarily, merchandise should be carefully packed for export, particularly when shipping by water route. However, merchants have complained of the extra cost of export packing when merchandise is shipped in carload lots from point of shipment to destination, this not being necessary since American freight cars may be billed through to Mexico City without transshipment. All boxes, crates and packages should be carefully numbered, accurate weights (metric measurement) stated, etc. It is necessary to bill goods to a broker at the port of entry, forwarding all necessary documents; but it is advisable to send a copy of all documents to the importer direct. LEADING INDUSTRIES AND OCCUPATIONS The leading manufacturing industries of the Mexico City District are: Steel, cigarettes, shoes, flour and crackers, textiles and candies. In the surrounding district, silver and gold mining and agriculture are important. MEXICO CITY AS A DISTRIBUTING CENTER The Republic of Mexico is roughly divided into three divisions with respect to foreign trade, viz.: The northern frontier and tributary territory supplied directly from the United States and from the distributors on the American side of the border; The Yucatan peninsula, supplied directly through the ports of New Orleans and New York, and the remainder of the Republic fed from Mexico City through Vera Cruz, Tampico and to some extent, the border towns of Nuevo Laredo and Piedras Negras. The ports of Tampico and Vera Cruz handle approximately threefourths of the total imports into Mexico, most of the merchandise being consigned to Mexico City. A large part of the imports through Nuevo Laredo are also destined for Mexico City. Therefore, even when no local market is found for a commodity in Mexico City it commonly affords the most convenient distributing center for the rest of the Republic. The consumption of foreign merchandise is confined to a very small part of the Mexican population, chiefly centered in the cities and larger towns. Most of these consuming centers, with the exception of the frontier districts and tributary territory, are supplied from Mexico City. The Consulate General at Mexico City exercises supervisory powers over the twenty-three American Consulates in Mexico and is coordinating consular trade work for the entire Republic in order to serve American trade interests to the best advantage. No responsibility is assumed as to the business standing of firms or persons whose names are furnished by this office. If such lists are published they must be accompanied by a conspicuous statement in the following language: "These names have been furnished by the American Consul General at Mexico City, Mexico. American consular officers at any foreign city will furnish such names to any American firm or individual addressing them." Credit reports can be had from American banks specializing in foreign business or from commercial reporting agencies such as Dun and Bradstreet. EXPLANATORY NOTES All values indicated hereafter are expressed in American dollars-data originally appearing in Mexican pesos having been converted at the rate of 2 pesos equal 1 dollar. In the absence of printed statistics of Mexican foreign trade for the halfyearly periods covered by the present report, recourse has been had to officially printed data appearing in "Comercio Exterior y Navegacion" published by the Statistical Division of the Mexican Ministry of Hacienda (Finance); and the monthly returns for each of the January-June periods of 1910, 1920, and 1921 have been compiled and concentrated in the form herein set forth. With respect to the first six months of 1922 and 1923, for which no official statistics have as yet been printed in final form, the Chief of the Statistical Division of the Mexican Ministry of Finance has permitted this Consulate-General to have access to the official archives and unpublished data for each of the months covered, which have been summarized and totaled in 6-month periods. In other terms, returns for each of the 30 months covered in the following report have been condensed and concentrated to form five half-yearly totals. From the above, it may be apparent that the totals herein set forth are definite and final so far as concerns the first half of 1910, 1920, and 1921, and may accordingly be considered; however, although the returns for the first half of 1922 and 1923 are not yet the subject of official printed compilations, they are the best available data at this time and may be taken as official but subject to revision by the Mexican government bureau above named before their final appearance in printed publications of the said department. The import statistics herewith presented do not include merchandise that arrived in the form of postal packages, or entered the country as personal baggage accompanying travelers. It may be useful to state that the percentage of American participation in the import trade of Mexico is probably much larger than is indicated by the official statistics herein set forth, which, of course, do not include the considerable amount of merchandise introduced into Mexico without passing through the customs houses or otherwise complying with the formalities of legal entry -and most of such informal importations arrive from the United States, across the Rio Grande and the international land frontier. Petroleum and derivatives thereof shipped abroad were included in general exportations from Mexico in the years 1910, 1920, and 1921, but they formed the subject of separate returns in 1922 and 1923, and hence are not included in the statistics of exports for the latter two years as set forth in Tables 4, 5, and 6 herein. In studying importations into Mexico by Countries of origin (Table No. 1), it should be borne in mind that Mexican statistics on the subject apparently do not take into account imports actually originating in a country or merely transshipped therefrom. It is accordingly more than probable that imports from Great Britain include a certain quantity of merchandise manufactured in other European countries and transshipped in British ports for carriage to Mexico in British ships. The same observation also seems applicable to importations credited to Germany, Belgium and France, in which may be included, in addition to goods really of German, Belgian and French manufacture, a relatively large quantity of commodities resulting from the industry of other countries and merely shipped from Hamburg, Antwerp, Havre (or other ports in France), to the Mexican market. This circumstance would lead to a larger trade being credited to the four European countries named than in reality exists -which should therefore be taken into consideration in reading Table No. 1 and the comments relative thereto herein. COMPARISON OF TOTAL FOREIGN TRADE According to the following record of Mexico's foreign commerce during the first half of 1923, as compared to the first six months of the pre-revolutionary and normal trade year, 1910, and of the past three years, it appears that the total value of combined sales and purchases abroad during January-June of the present year is double that registered for the corresponding months of 1910, but that, while greater by five per cent than the similar figure for 1920, it represents only 76 per cent of foreign trade in the first half of 1921, and 80 per cent of foreign exchanges in the same half of 1922. FOREIGN TRADE OF MEXICO DURING FIRST 6 MONTHS OF: 122,952,741 239,865,986 331,026,223 315,300,560 | 253,054,402 *Petroleum and derivatives were included in general exportations in the years 1910, 1920, and 1921, but formed the subject of separate returns in 1922 and 1923. CONTINUED FAVORABLE BALANCE OF TRADE An excess of exports over imports gave Mexico a favorable trade balance of $14,841,903 for the first semester of 1910. The rapid development of petroleum deposits during the succeeding years, and large shipments abroad of this product, caused the favorable balance to amount to $74,091,534 in the first half of 1920. Oil shipments augmented still further in 1921, but the simultaneous entry of imports valued at an abnormal figure reduced the net balance to $60,062,593. However, the balance to Mexico's credit moved upward to $169,531,938 in the first half of 1922, as a result of continued large exports of petroleum at the same time that imports declined to lower levels. The marked decrease to $110,593,580 in the excess of exports over imports during the period January-June of 1923 was due to the circumstance that, while imports declined slightly and ordinary exports increased by $13,347,941, a sharp falling off of $73,935,199 occurred in the total value of petroleum shipments from Mexico in the first half of the present year. IMPORTS INTO MEXICO DECLINE IN PHYSICAL VOLUME OF IMPORTS That the monetary value assigned to importations in any of the four most recent half-year periods under review is much larger than that pertaining to the same part of 1910 is undoubtedly due to the higher prices prevailing since 1920, and does not signify any proportionate increase in the physical volume of goods reaching this market. On the contrary, although the precise effect of price fluctuations on the total values affixed to Mexican imports is not susceptible of exact measurement by any available data having particular reference to conditions in this market, it seems possible to state that recent years have witnessed a distinct tendency to contraction in the bulk-as distinguished from value of merchandise entering Mexico, upon comparison with 1910. Indeed, on the showing of mere values, it would appear that the inward trade movement in the first half of 1910 was exceeded by 50 per cent in the corresponding period of 1920, and by 150 per cent in the same part of 1921. However, goods comprising trade during 1920 and 1921 were purchased at post-war boom prices that may be conservatively estimated as averaging 150 per cent higher than those ruling in 1910. Upon accepting this higher price level as a fact, and utilizing it as a basis on which to determine the real volume of imports, it would appear that the physical bulk of imports into this country in the first half of 1920 represented only 60.7 per cent of actual merchandise arrivals in the same period of 1910; and even the extraordinary influx of foreign goods in the first six months of 1921 (though valued at a very large figure) were really on no more than an almost exact quantitative parity with importations effected in the corresponding half of 1910. By the beginning of 1922, prices had fallen to a level still 60 per cent above that of 1910, and the coincidence of this fact with the pronounced decline in total value assigned to imports in the first half of 1922 caused these to form 83.3 per cent of the physical volume of goods actually received in the corresponding period of 1910. In the first half of 1923, a further slight decline occurred both in value and volume of importations, and merchandise entered during this period constituted 82.1 per cent of the actual volume absorbed by the Mexican market in the same six months of 1910. GEOGRAPHICAL SOURCE OF IMPORTS The following table shows the value of imports drawn into Mexico from the several geographical grand divisions during the first six months of each of the five years under discussion. 1910.. 32,766,762 1920. 1921 1922 1923 19,418,026 1,068,687 59,084,529 21,420,747 626,869 97,079,377 37,048,324 608,606 43,603,941 27,686,024 866,688 51,468,896 18,299,223 560,705 744,931 92,009 284,003,505 123,872,344 3,731,555 4,413,631 270,149 743,038 15,751 1,587,887 77,595 679,667 35,224 658,108 49,570 (In United States dollars) It will be immediately apparent, from the above, that the value of imports from North America (United States) and Europe is far superior to that of contributions from other continents, which in fact supply Mexico to a relatively insignificant. degree. PROPORTIONATE PARTICIPATION IN IMPORT TRADE A clearer perception of the extent to which North America (United States) and Europe predominate in furnishing the needs of the Mexican market is perhaps obtainable from the following tabulation of percentages in which the several world divisions shared the import trade of this country in each of the 6-month periods under review: |