AFP.- Governor Samuel García lives between two big news: the birth of his daughter and the arrival of Tesla to his state, Nuevo León, in the north of Mexico near the United States, an area driven by industries that now prefer to produce in America instead of Asia.
The production of electric cars at the “giga factory” near Monterrey, the state capital, could begin “next January,” the ruler told AFP hours before going to the hospital for delivery.
Garcia, 35, a regular on social media with his wife, uploads a video of his daughter’s birth to Instagram as well as his photo with Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla.
Ten days after the investment of Teslawhich according to the Mexican government will be for about 5,000 million dollars, the firm finalized the purchase of land on the highway that leads to Saltillo, the capital of the neighboring state of Coahuila.
«I think it is a huge piece of land where they are going to build the largest plant in the world. As far as I know, there are more than 1,600 hectares », he explains.
Jobs and euphoria
With the arrival of Tesla, the governor is committed to the creation of some 7,000 direct jobs. Also, between 40,000 and 50,000 indirect in Monterrey, located 200 km from the border with Texas and about 600 km from Austin, headquarters of the firm.
«We have some 30 companies supplying Tesla that from November to February they already came here,” he said.
This Taiwanese company, which produces the “brains” of electric cars, was installed in December 2021 and in just over a year it has recruited some 2,500 people.
“It’s crazy,” says a company executive who is glad his Tesla partner will soon be close by instead of in Austin.
The French Saint-Gobain (windshield) has a factory, and Faurecia (seats) will soon have one, near Monterreywhere in December 2021 France opened a consulate general, its first in ten years in the world.
However, civil organizations temper the euphoria of the elites of Nuevo León, an industrial state with 5.7 million inhabitants that in 2022 was affected by an unprecedented drought and whose clouds of pollutants often reach the mountains surrounding the capital.
The state will have to be able to respond “in record time” to the demand “for housing, water, transportation, health and education,” warns Sandrine Molinard, general director of the Civic Council organization, anticipating a demographic boom.
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«Nearshoring»
The “Tesla effect” and the new world environment are felt several hundred kilometers northwest of Monterrey, in Ciudad Juárez, on the border with USA.
This town in the state of Chihuahua is the cradle of the “maquiladoras” and factories of foreign firms. These use Mexican labor to assemble different products that are exported to the United States.
The trade war between the United States and China, the covid and the stoppage of trade, the relocation of production lines, President Joe Biden’s plans to support the US economy: all have contributed to giving a second wind to between 300 and 350 maquiladoras in Ciudad Juárez, according to figures from local actors.
“It’s a boom,” summarizes Iván Pérez, general director of municipal economic development, who is concerned about the shortage of labor. “There is a deficit of about 30,000 people.”
New warehouses are being built in the “industrial parks” established along the border wall that prevents access to El Paso, the neighboring US city, so close and yet so far away for migrants stranded in Ciudad Juárez.
Four companies from Taiwan “are constructing 70,000 square meters of building.” This is how the architect and developer of industrial buildings Jorge Bermúdez, son of one of the pioneers of the maquiladoras in the 1960s, explains it.
“In twenty years I have never seen availability be below 5% of the available area,” confirms Eduardo Cinco, a real estate consultant for companies looking for land.
Need and trend
This new boom, called “nearshoring” by specialists, responds to the need of large corporations to bring their centers of production to major customers.
But this trend does not entirely please a young industrialist, Jesús Manuel Salayandia, outgoing president of the local section of the National Chamber of the Transformation Industry.
In 60 years of the maquiladora industry in Ciudad Juárez and the north of the country, “there has not been a true technology transfer” for the benefit of the industrial development of Mexico, he laments.