By Juan Manuel Blanco
Tapachula, Mexico, Feb 2 (EFE). – The city of Tapachula, on Mexico’s southern border, closed 2023 with the highest inflation in the country amid an unprecedented migration crisis, local business organizations warned Friday.
The city had an annual inflation rate of 7.17%, above Mexico’s national average of 4.66%, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography.
Representatives of the city’s Chambers of Commerce told EFE that the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants increased the prices of basic foodstuffs, transportation, and rents.
Nicolás Castañeda, president of the Tapachula Chamber of the Transformation Industry, pointed out that it is necessary to allow the migrants to advance.
“We have fought hard because these people are in transit, they want agility in the migratory procedures, we have said that their procedures should be accelerated so that there is no social discontent among citizens,” he said.
Rising inflation amid rising migration
Mexico and Central America are facing an “unprecedented” migration flow to North America in 2023.
According to the International Organization for Migration, at its peak, up to 6,000 migrants a day arrived at Mexico’s southern border, according to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Given the demand, products such as sugar, eggs, chicken, and meat, among others, have become more expensive since mid-2023, said Jorge Echeverría, secretary general of the Small Merchants Union.
“Frankly, we have never seen such an increase in the basic food basket, mainly rice and eggs, which have risen by about 60%,” he said.
Echeverría also denounced that landlords are taking advantage by charging between 1,000 and 1,500 pesos per person per month (between $58.3 and $87.5) for a place where up to 10 people live.
María de Caridad Rodríguez, who arrived from Cuba, pays 1,700 pesos (almost $100) a month for her rent, after which she is unable to buy the entire basic food basket because her job pays only 100 pesos a day (about $5.83).
“I spend more on food, rice, beans, and oil, which are expensive products because they pay me 100 pesos a day, and that’s not enough for rent. If I pay rent I can’t eat,” she says.
Still, she prefers to stay in Mexico and is processing her application before the Mexican government’s Commission for Refugee Assistance.
Yin Rafael, a migrant from Venezuela passing through the southern border, asserted that he has faced the high cost of the basic food basket since the beginning of his journey, and Tapachula is no exception.
“We (spend) only on food because we do not buy clothes or anything else, see how we are doing. We live in a hostel and we all pitch in to sleep in one room,” he said. EFE
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