FROM THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

As part of her ongoing leadership in the U.S./Mexico Partnership for Prosperity initiative, U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin on Friday will highlight some of the new competitive, low-cost ways that people in the United States can send money to family members and friends in Mexico. She will demonstrate these options by sending personal funds to a relative in Mexico City.

The event will take place at 10:00 a.m. EDT on Friday, May 24 at the Citibank Financial Center, 1749 ½ Columbia Road, N.W., Washington, DC.

The event is hosted by the U.S./Mexico Chamber of Commerce and will take place in a Citibank Financial Center in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The U.S./Mexico Chamber of Commerce selected Citibank as one of several financial institutions including banks and credit unions that are offering competitive, low-cost ways to send money to Mexico.

Each year, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans send a total of more than $9 billion to family and friends in Mexico. The average remittance is $200-$250. However, fees for those remittances can be as high as 20%.

The U.S./Mexico Partnership for Prosperity initiative – a joint effort created by President George W. Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox – seeks to leverage private sector resources to promote development in the parts of Mexico where growth has lagged and fueled migration.

Partnership for Prosperity is working to promote competition among financial institutions offering remittance services. Greater competition will lower the cost to consumers of sending money home to households and regional economies in Mexico that need it most.

Rosario Marin, the highest-ranking Latina in the Bush Administration, was sworn in as the 41^st Treasurer of the United States on Aug. 16, 2001. Born in Mexico City before immigrating to the United States at age 14, Treasurer Marin is the first U.S. Treasurer born outside of the country.

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