The most important exporting companies in Mexico

Export Companies in Mexico

By the size of its gross domestic product, Mexico is currently the 12th largest economy of the globe. The economic success of Mexico is due to the liberalization of trade and the large portion of private investors in the economic sector. Intense support is also provided by the state institutions, which strive to increase the country's competitiveness through investments in seaports, telecommunications, railroads, generation of electricity, airports and distribution of natural gas.

Mexico generates a large portion of its economic growth on exports, meaning as such that it is sensitive to internal demands. As the economic crisis manifested its tremendous impacts, the global demand for items decreased and the Mexican economy was severely impacted as demand for its production decreased. Aside from the decreased level of exports due to the crisis, the Mexican economy also remains sensitive to several internal issues, such as a weak educational sector, weak infrastructure, outdated labor laws and decreased private investment in the energy sector (Central Intelligence Agency, 2012).

At the level of exports, Mexico and the general Latin America have focused on the development of free trade agreements, under which the partner countries would be able to exchange products in a free manner, without barriers and additional costs. The most important such agreement is the NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), through which Mexico developed free trade policies with Canada and the United States. The scope of the agreement was to increase exports to these regions, but imports have increased nonetheless. After the signing of NAFTA, imports from Canada increased from 2.5 to 5 per cent and the imports from the United States increased from 7 to 12% (Central Intelligence Agency, 2012).

Aside from the trade agreements with the U.S. And Canada, Mexico also signed free trade agreements with other states, such as Honduras, Japan, the European Free Trade Area, Guatemala and so on. In effect, 90 per cent of all Mexican exports are traded under free trade agreements. The primary destinations of the Mexican exports remain however the U.S. And Canada, the first receiving 71.7 per cent of Mexican exports and the latter being the recipient of 7.4 per cent of all Mexican exports. At the level of specific items exported, these include mainly "manufactured goods, oil and oil products, silver, fruits, vegetables, coffee [and] cotton" (Central Intelligence Agency, 2012).

The export rate is increasing in Mexico, following the same trend in the entire Latin America. The exports increase in relationship to countries outside the Latin America, while the exports within the region tend to decrease. The Latin American states increased exports at different rates, the variances being given by state specific features. Throughout 2010 and 2011, a revival has been observed as the export rate increased, but this increase is expected to reduce throughout 2012. Latin America is as such seeking to decrease its interregional dependence and develop more relationships with the better developed economies of the globe. It nevertheless remains sensitive to the international economic crisis and the debt crisis in the Euro-zone (Inter-American Development Bank, 2011).

As it has been previously mentioned, the Latin American countries are characterized by specific traits, which make it difficult to conduct integrated analyses. The same can be said about Mexico, where different traits are also observed. Based on these traits, Tecnologico de Menterrey has developed four specific models for regional development. The models, created based on strong theoretical background and adapted to the Mexican realities, refer to the following:

Model 1: Technology Parks for the high value employment to employ high numbers of non-research and non-scientific staffs, but specialized staffs for high-value activities

Model 2: Technology Parks for the attraction and development of business. These entities will appeal to technology companies looking to launch operations in the region as they will provide consultancy, technology management, networking and accessed to research and development, yet no direct R&D activities.

Model 3: Technology parks for companies with scientific activities, which are similar to the parks in the second model, but better equipped for sophisticated companies, such as biotechnology or nanotechnology firms.

Model 4: Regional technology parks with several sponsors, which provide support for technology operations in high spaces and with large numbers of employees (Tecnologico de Monterrey, 2011).

Overall, this four phase model for attracting foreign technology companies seems promising and it focuses on the services which are and will continually be needed by the companies in the more developed global regions. Nonetheless, Mexico is not a recognized hub of technology and will have to address this issue first. In other words, it will have to better train its labor to make it more specialized in the technological field; this would also include investments in the educational sector to better form the future labor force.