Luis Antonio Ramírez Pineda, Director of NAFIN and Bancomext, stated that SMEs will be the main beneficiaries of nearshoring.

During the presentation on "Investment Opportunities Derived from Nearshoring" at the Capital and Investment Summit organized by CAINTRA, the official pointed out that the great challenge facing the country is the development of suppliers, since anchor companies located in the United States require intermediate goods and products in the value chains in which SMEs are involved.

Currently, there are 6,641 companies in the northern region of the country that together manufacture a total of 239 products ranging from plastics, electrical, metal and electronic products, and are ready to take advantage of the opportunities offered by nearshoring.

"The great beneficiaries of nearshoring are the small and medium-sized companies. Developing suppliers is precisely the great challenge we have as a country, who are the ones that are demanding the final products? The anchor companies that are in the United States, they are the ones that require intermediate goods, they are the ones that require intermediate products so that they can be processed and at the same time be consumed in the United States, precisely what Asia does, what Europe does, what other parts of the world do is to produce those intermediate goods, and what we see is that imports can be substituted and made here in Mexico. It is the small and medium-sized companies that have this great area of opportunity," he said.

He highlighted as competitiveness factors the region's geographic proximity to the United States, Mexico's main trading partner, as well as the capacity to train skilled labor, access to raw materials, and infrastructure that guarantees the production of such raw materials.

"We have several competitiveness factors, among them is perhaps number one, the one that has to do with the proximity, geography, the proximity we have with the United States, allows and facilitates the appetite for U.S. anchor companies to be interested in having their suppliers as close as possible, the second is the demographic bonus we have as a country, we obviously have greater capacity to train people, to qualify people, today there is an increasing shortage of labor in the United States; They have a shortage in different areas and this allows Mexico to have the opportunity to develop a new generation of specialized labor in the different productive sectors of the economy.

He highlighted the importance of the northern region of the country, which is where nearshoring opportunities are concentrated thanks to the important manufacturing platform that groups the region, concentrating 27% of manufacturing producers that employ 32% of Mexico's population.

"In terms of infrastructure, the north of the country has 32 international airports, 120 thousand kilometers of highways that connect with the United States, more than 200 industrial parks and at the same time we also have quality education, we have more than 1,300 institutions of higher education, we have more than 780 universities and 70 research centers, that is, in the northern region of the country that goes from the Baja Californias to Tamaulipas is an area where Mexico already has an infrastructure, platforms, knowledge, education; to take advantage of it and to be able to continue being a region of the country that takes full advantage of nearshoring.

"We have in Mexico and in the north of the country, an important number of companies that already know the North American market, that are already producing products that North Americans demand and that is where we believe that we do not have to start from scratch, but on the contrary we have to take advantage of these areas of opportunity that are present in Mexico today," he added.

At CAINTRA we agree with what Luis Antonio Ramírez said and we will work to train and support the SME sector so that they can take full advantage of the opportunities that will come to the region thanks to nearshoring.

CAINTRA NUEVO LEÓN