MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico posted a larger-than-expected trade deficit in March, with a global shortage of chips hobbling the country's vast automobile exports sector, data published by the national statistics agency INEGI showed on Tuesday.
Latin America's second largest economy posted a $2.906 billion trade deficit last month when adjusted for seasonal swings. The deficit was $3.004 billion in non-seasonally adjusted terms.
"The weak performance of auto exports in February-March reflects to some extent supply chain disruptions caused by gas supply restrictions in parts of the U.S. and Mexico and scarcity of semiconductors," Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) economist Alberto Ramos said in a note.
Automakers including General Motors Co (NYSE:GM), Ford Motor (NYSE:F) Co and Toyota Motor (NYSE:TM) Corp have cut production this year due to a global semiconductor chip shortage.
Manufacturing exports, which account for roughly 30% of Mexico's gross domestic product, jumped by 9.9% in March versus a year earlier and increased by 2.2% during the first three months of the year on an annual basis, according to INEGI data.
That was weighed down in March by a 5.2% drop in auto exports, which account for roughly a third of all manufacturing shipments, and a 4.8% drop in January to March shipments of cars.
The reactivation of Mexico's manufacturing sector "will be slower than previously expected due to the problem with a chip" shortage in the automotive sector, economist Jose Luis De la Cruz said.
He added, though, that a low base of comparison in April and May 2020 should boost figures over the next couple of months.