Mexico is keeping its market open to Brazilian chicken imports as a measure to combat inflation.
In 2024, Mexican chicken imports from Brazil reached a record US$534 million, up 7% year-on-year, according to data from the Ministry of Development, Industry and Trade.
Brazilian chicken imports
With this growth, Mexico moved from sixth position in 2023 to fourth in 2024 among the main destinations for Brazilian chicken exports.
The aforementioned statistics refer to frozen chicken cuts and offal (other).
Mexico’s Presidential Anti-Inflation Decree will run until 2025. Its objective is to reduce the impact of drought on food prices and strengthen trade alliances.
This decree allows certain agricultural products to enter Mexico without tariffs. Thus, partners without a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) can access the Mexican market.
Imports of Brazilian chicken to Mexico, in millions of dollars, are shown below:
- 2020: 9.
- 2021: 159.
- 2022: 334.
- 2023: 367.
- 2024: 534.
Inflation
The benefits apply only to companies within the List of Importers of Basic Food Basket Products. In addition, in its article one, the decree updates the items of the Harmonized System (HS), following the version of January 6, 2023.
The extension will be effective until December 31, 2025. However, registered companies will be able to take advantage of these benefits until March 31, 2026.
Brazil has been the main beneficiary of the elimination of tariffs on poultry meat imports into Mexico. This measure, implemented as part of the Anti-Inflation and Deficiency Package (Pacic), seeks to curb price increases.
As of May 17, 2022, Mexico unilaterally eliminated tariffs on certain poultry meat products from countries without trade agreements.
In the fourth quarter of 2024, headline consumer inflation in Mexico continued to decline and reached 4.5% annually. This figure represents a 0.5 percentage point reduction from the previous quarter, the largest drop since the third quarter of 2023, according to Banco de México statistics.
Globally, inflation also showed a downward trend in most countries, approaching their central banks’ targets. However, there were upticks due to increases in energy, food and core inflation.