He nearshoring It has become an enormous opportunity for Mexico to consolidate its growth and development, and although it faces strong competition from other countries, for some national banks it has sufficient advantages to take advantage of the new “Mexican moment.”
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During his participation in a forum organized by a national newspaper, Eduardo García Lecuona, from Intercam Grupo Financiero; Jorge Arce, from HSBC México, and Lorenzo Barrera Segovia, from Grupo Financiero Base, agreed that nearshoring is a “huge and historic” opportunity that Mexico -entrepreneurs and the Government- must take advantage of.
According to the bankers, the main challenges are the lack of industrial parks; insufficient electrical energy to supply all the companies that are installed; the lack of water in the north of the country, and insufficient infrastructure in the south of the country (roads, railways).
Meanwhile, the main opportunities or advantages that Mexico would obtain are the creation of thousands of direct and indirect jobs; the development of the south of the country, and historic investments in the coming years.
“Mexico is in the right neighborhood, on the right street, in the right building, and in the right apartment. We have a scaffolding that we created over the last 30 years in terms of free trade agreements, customs, logistics, access to energy, and so on. Mexico has a great future, the opportunity is unique”, stated Arce, director of HSBC Mexico.
However, Marcos Ramírez, director of Grupo Financiero Banorte, considered that to take advantage of nearshoring, all of Mexico must be included in the new supply chains; it is necessary for the benefits to be sustainable in the long term.
In this regard, Lorenzo Barrera, from GF Base, said that the Government of Mexico needs to invest heavily in the south of the country so that states such as Chiapas, Campeche, Oaxaca, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Veracruz and Yucatán can benefit from nearshoring.
“The Government has to provide infrastructure: universities, roads, railways, electricity. There are many things missing in southern Mexico for a company to say ‘I’m going to establish here’. In the north we see many technical universities, the proximity to the United States and that is an important advantage, ”he indicated.
OTHER FACTORS
However, bank executives see other variables that are key to making the most of the relocation of companies and ask to do everything necessary to obtain all the possible benefits of this great new opportunity that Mexico has.
In this regard, Daniel Becker, general director of Grupo Financiero Mifel, warned that if investors perceive that the rule of law is not being followed, that the rules of the game are not clear, and that there is no adequate infrastructure that generates bottlenecks in the operation, the country’s potential could be overshadowed.
Manuel Romo, director of Citibanamex, explained that the country must continue with its promotional work and facilitate the arrival of investments, because there are also many other nations competing to keep a bit of the enormous nearshoring opportunity.
“We are seeing encouraging signs of investment… You have to be very competitive, very attentive to opportunities,” he said.
For his part, Luis de la Calle, founder of the consulting firm De la Calle, Madrazo, Mancera, assured that it is necessary to make reforms to have greater investment in logistics and competition in the energy sector, which will be crucial to be able to sustain investments.
While Alejandro Saldaña, chief economist at Ve por Más, pointed out that the infrastructure will generate a second wave of investment, so the task must be done at the local level to take advantage of this opportunity.
With media information
