GDP of the Mexican pharmaceutical industry reached a higher level in 2021

As part of its Collection of sectoral and regional studies, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) presented the study “Getting to know the pharmaceutical industry,” in which it reports an economic panorama of productive activities, employment, wages, production, inflation and foreign trade of said sector.

The purpose of the publication is to measure its importance in the national economy. For this reason, he reported that the evolution of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the pharmaceutical industry in Mexico at constant prices shows two different periods. The first, from 1993 to 2008, had an average annual growth of 3%, and the second was marked by a reduction from 2009.

This was a consequence, among other things, of the restructuring of international value chains. This caused Mexico to stop producing some medicines that had to be imported.

The GDP of the pharmaceutical industry had a growth of 8.4% in 2021 compared to 2020 and reached a higher level than before the Covid-19 pandemic.

From 2003 to 2021, the pharmaceutical industry increased from 480 to 908, representing an average annual growth of 3.6%. In 2018, 30.0% of the economic units of the pharmaceutical industry were medium and large establishments. This percentage contrasts with the 1.1% that this type of monetary unit represents at the national level.

Pharmaceutical industry jobs increased 3.6% in 2020 compared to 2019. This translates to 79,000 jobs in total. In 2018, in the pharmaceutical industry, 46.5% of employed personnel were women. On average, women hold 41.3% of employment, and in manufacturing, 36.9%.

In 2020, 81.4% of the exports of this industry were concentrated in nine countries. The leading destination was the United States of America, with 42.3%. About imports, 83.2% were focused on eight countries. The highest percentage came from the United States of America with 30.7%, followed by China with 14.2%.