Mexico must define key sectors to leverage nearshoring, USMCA, experts say at EFE’s forum

CHIHUAHUA, Mexico, Oct. 15, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Mexico must identify strategic sectors crucial for development and enhance infrastructure to capitalize on the influx of foreign companies driven by the nearshoring trend and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), experts and government officials said during EFE’s economic forum, “Competitiveness, economic development, and prosperity.”

This forum, supported by Economic Development of the State of Chihuahua (DESEC), took place in Chihuahua (northern Mexico), there René Espinosa, president of the state chapter of the National Council of the Maquiladora and Export Manufacturing Industry (Index), noted that the USMCA opens the door to define key sectors not only for Mexico but for the entire North American region. “The focus of the discussions to be held within the USMCA must be on developing strategic value chains in the North American region. The agreement has brought a geopolitical and economic advantage, maximizing the potential in various sectors,” he said.

Espinosa emphasized that, despite the ongoing trade dispute between the US and China, the goal of the USMCA should not solely be to replace supply chains from the Asian nation. Instead, he argued, all value chains where the three countries can be globally competitive should be evaluated.
Meanwhile, Ulises Fernández, secretary of Innovation and Business Development for the state government of Chihuahua, remarked that while nearshoring is not a new phenomenon, a new wave of relocations is gaining momentum.

For this reason, he suggested that governments need to assess how to strengthen the productive infrastructure of various industrial sectors to enhance them and become prime destinations for new foreign investment. “We must ensure that we have the necessary talent development, the infrastructure, to support the growth and development of industry, and above all, create conditions not only to encourage investment but also to ensure that the local ecosystem participates — not merely as a provider of talent, but as an integrated entrepreneurial ecosystem involved in more complex processes,” he said. Finally, Tony Lin, head of Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), stated that Mexico has a significant opportunity to capitalize on nearshoring due to the USMCA. “Many companies, including Taiwanese ones, need to make their investments. They need to operate in Mexico because, of course, trade in Canada and the US is too costly, so their only option is Mexico,” he said.

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