Publicado en: https://mail.latinometrics.com/p/mexico-s-nearshoring-boom
El boom del nearshoring en México
En colaboración con la Fundación México-Estados Unidos, AmCham México y Bridge49.
Este Deep Dive fue producido con el apoyo de Bridge49: The Nearshoring Tech Alliance.
Bridge49, lanzada a principios de este año por la Fundación México-Estados Unidos y la American Chamber México, reúne a seis empresas líderes en tecnología B2B - Auba, Marco, Nuvocargo, Prima, Pulsar y Transmute - para aprovechar la innovación y la tecnología para hacer frente a desafíos críticos en el corredor comercial México-Estados Unidos.
A pesar de los progresos realizados por América Latina en las últimas décadas, gran parte de la región sigue dependiendo de los mismos pocos bienes.
La soja es el mayor producto de exportación tanto para Brasil como para Argentina. Para Colombia, el petróleo. Para Chile, el cobre.
Pero hay una excepción importante a esta tendencia regional: México, cuyos productos manufacturados representan casi el 90% de las exportaciones. De hecho, si se triplicaran las exportaciones totales de manufacturas del resto de América Latina (incluido Brasil), México por sí solo seguiría teniendo más cada año.
Diversos elementos han ayudado a México a desarrollar su economía para escapar de la trampa de las materias primas a la que se enfrenta hoy gran parte de América Latina. ¿Y un factor importante? La inversión extranjera, de la que México fue el noveno mayor receptor del mundo el año pasado.
Se habla de inversión extranjera directa (IED) cuando una empresa de un país invierte en otro con el objetivo de mantener una participación duradera de control. Esta inversión puede adoptar la forma de establecimiento de una nueva filial local en el extranjero o de compra de una participación significativa de una empresa extranjera ya existente.
La inversión extranjera ha sido una fuente crucial de capital externo para América Latina durante décadas. En el caso de México, se está produciendo un auténtico boom de la IED, que aportó más de 36.000 millones de dólares el año pasado.
Como era de esperar, más de un tercio de toda la inversión extranjera en México procede de su principal socio comercial, Estados Unidos. La relación comercial entre Estados Unidos y México es la mayor del mundo y abarca sectores tan diversos como la industria automovilística, el petróleo, los seguros y otros. Fieles a su costumbre, las empresas estadounidenses están invirtiendo grandes sumas en el sur, que se suman a los 207.000 millones de dólares de IED nacional. Además de las empresas de países más lejanos, como Canadá y España, en los últimos años se ha producido un claro repunte de la IED debido a una nueva tendencia post-pandémica denominada nearshoring. El nearshoring es una tendencia por la que las empresas reducen su exposición a las interrupciones de la cadena de suministro acercando sus operaciones al mercado de consumo final. Se trata de una fase relativamente nueva de la globalización, que trata de evitar los escollos de las cadenas de suministro sobredimensionadas trasladando los centros de producción más cerca de casa en lugar de simplemente donde la mano de obra o los recursos puedan ser más baratos. ¿Ha cerrado la pandemia sus fábricas al otro lado del mundo? ¿Las tensiones geopolíticas interrumpen sus envíos? ¿Se han atascado las principales vías fluviales por culpa de los fuertes vientos? El nearshoring puede ser la solución.
No es de extrañar que México sea uno de los principales beneficiarios de este auge, ya que es una economía del G-20 con una mano de obra numerosa y cualificada y una ubicación estratégica justo en la frontera con Estados Unidos. La IED vinculada al nearshoring en sectores industriales (pensemos en la industria automovilística, farmacéutica o de bebidas) creció más de un 47% solo entre 2022 y 2023.
De hecho, según cifras del Instituto Mexicano para la Competitividad (IMCO), casi la mitad de toda la inversión estadounidense del año pasado fue de naturaleza nearshoring, lo que refleja el interés de las empresas estadounidenses en reubicar su producción (y capital) en un lugar más amigable y estratégico. Los grandes fabricantes de automóviles de pesos pesados de la industria como Alemania, China y Japón también están aprovechando las condiciones laborales y comerciales únicas de México para abrir nuevas plantas de ensamblaje cerca del mercado de consumo estadounidense.
Así que ha llegado mucho dinero de la deslocalización, ya sea en forma de enormes fábricas de vehículos eléctricos en Coahuila o de multimillonarias plantas farmacéuticas cerca de la capital del país. Pero, ¿se beneficia la población local?
Bueno, la inversión extranjera puede aportar una serie de beneficios a los países receptores, como el impulso de las exportaciones y el crecimiento de la productividad a través de la transferencia de tecnología. También tiende a crear puestos de trabajo de mayor calidad y mejor remunerados, e incluso conduce indirectamente a la creación de empleo en empresas de propiedad nacional debido a los efectos indirectos en otros sectores.
Y México lo está viendo en tiempo real: muchos de los estados que atraen más IED también tienen los salarios medios más altos del país.
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Mexico's Nearshoring Boom
In collaboration with the US-Mexico Foundation, AmCham Mexico, and Bridge49.
Latinometrics
October 01, 2024 • Reading Time: 10 minutes
This Deep Dive was produced with the support of Bridge49: The Nearshoring Tech Alliance.
Bridge49, launched earlier this year by the U.S.-Mexico Foundation and the American Chamber Mexico, brings together six leading B2B tech companies – Auba, Marco, Nuvocargo, Prima, Pulsar, and Transmute – to harness innovation and technology in addressing critical challenges in the US-Mexico trade corridor.
Despite the progress made by Latin America in recent decades, much of the region still depends on the same few goods.
Soy is the largest export for both Brazil and Argentina. For Colombia, it’s oil. For Chile, copper.
But there is one major exception to this regional trend: Mexico, for which manufactured goods represent nearly 90% of exports. In fact, if you tripled the total manufacturing exports from the rest of Latin America (including Brazil), Mexico alone would still have more each year.
A variety of elements have helped Mexico develop its economy to escape the commodity trap facing much of Latin America today. And one big factor? Foreign investment, of which Mexico was the ninth-largest recipient in the world last year.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) refers to when a company in one country invests in another country with the aim of maintaining a controlling lasting interest. This investment can take the form of establishing a new local subsidiary abroad or buying up a significant stake of an existing foreign company.
Now, foreign investment has been a crucial source of external capital for Latin America for decades. And in the case of Mexico, there is an absolute FDI boom going on right now, one which brought in over $36B just last year.
A breakdown of foreign investment in Mexico
As expected, over a third of all foreign investment in Mexico comes from its primary trade partner, the United States. The US-Mexico trade relationship is the world’s largest and spans sectors as diverse as the auto industry to oil, insurance, and beyond.
True to form, US-based firms are investing big down south, adding to an existing $207B in national FDI stock. Adding to companies from farther-off players like Canada and Spain, there’s been a clear FDI uptick in recent years on the back of a new post-pandemic trend called nearshoring.
Nearshoring refers to a trend in which companies reduce their exposure to supply chain disruptions by bringing operations nearer the final consumer market. It’s a relatively new stage of globalization, one seeking to avoid the pitfalls of overextended supply chains by moving production centers closer to home rather than merely where labor or resources might be cheapest.
Did the pandemic shut down your factories halfway across the world? Are geopolitical tensions disrupting your shipments? Major waterways getting clogged by some rough winds? Nearshoring might just be for you.
Where is all the nearshoring money coming from?
Mexico is unsurprisingly a major benefactor of this boom, as a G20 economy with a large, educated workforce and a strategic location right on the US border. Nearshoring-linked FDI in industrial sectors (think of the motor vehicle, pharmaceutical, or beverage industries) grew by over 47% between just 2022 and 2023.
In fact, per numbers by Mexico’s Competitiveness Institute (IMCO) just about half of all US investment from last year was nearshoring in nature, reflecting American companies’ interest in relocating their production (and capital) towards a friendlier, more strategic location. Large automakers from industrial heavyweights like Germany, China, and Japan are also taking advantage of Mexico’s unique labor and trade terms to open up new assembly plants near the US consumer market.
So plenty of nearshoring money has come in, whether in the form of massive electric vehicle factories in Coahuila or multimillion pharmaceutical plants near the country’s capital. But do locals stand to benefit?
Well, foreign investment can bring a number of benefits to recipient countries, including boosting exports and productivity growth through technology transfer. It also tends to create higher-quality, higher-paid jobs and even indirectly leads to job creation in domestic-owned firms due to spillovers in other sectors.
And Mexico is seeing this play out in real time: many of the states attracting the most FDI also have the highest average wages in the country.
Northern border states like Baja California, Chihuahua, and Nuevo León have long stood to benefit from their proximity to the US. Foreign investment is no exception, going back to the tariff-free maquiladoras which cropped up in the mid-20th century and have employed millions of Mexicans ever since.
Today the northernmost states lead the country in both FDI and workers’ income, joined by the tourism hotspot of Baja California Sur and of course the nation’s capital of Mexico City.
On the flip side, Chiapas, historically the least developed Mexican state, has struggled to attract FDI and grow workers’ wages. This can partly be explained by geography, but also as a result of economic activity: the agriculture-heavy state has seen less technology investment than its more industrial peers to the north.
But as always, where there’s a challenge there’s an opportunity. The Mexican digital economy is currently responsible for an estimated $60B in domestic economic value each year. In March, the federal government agreed to explore cooperation opportunities with its northern neighbor to promote the development of North American semiconductor supply chains. And above all, firms on both sides of the border are working hand-in-hand to solve complex logistical problems through technology and innovation.
One key factor to capitalizing on the nearshoring opportunities available to Mexico is boosting domestic investment. Despite its impressive industrial output and hundreds of homegrown tech firms, Mexico has long lagged even other Latin American countries when it comes to spending on research and development (R&D).
Mexico falls behind on Research and Development
Yet the soil is already fertile for changing this and boosting R&D spending in order to grow prosperity. Mexico’s IT industry saw an average annual growth rate of 10.5% between 2002 and 2018. The country has some of the greatest universities in the world and among the best entrepreneurial ecosystems in Latin America. Mexico City is the second-largest tech hub in the region, behind only São Paulo, while Guadalajara has affectionately earned the nickname of “Mexico’s Silicon Valley.”
Even the political scene offers great potential for increasing R&D expenditure, as incoming president Claudia Sheinbaum has announced the creation of a new Ministry for Science, Humanities, Technology and Innovation.
All in all, the ingredients are there for Mexico to capitalize on the nearshoring boom which is bringing new investments to its shores. Startup seed accelerators, public-private partnerships, and binational tech alliances will all have a role to play in ensuring that Mexico’s greatest assets, its people and businesses, see the benefits of this boom.
This Deep Dive was produced with the support of Bridge49: The Nearshoring Tech Alliance.
Bridge49, launched earlier this year by the U.S.-Mexico Foundation and the American Chamber Mexico, brings together six leading B2B tech companies – Auba, Marco, Nuvocargo, Prima, Pulsar, and Transmute – to harness innovation and technology in addressing critical challenges in the US-Mexico trade corridor.
