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According to corporate consultant Alix Partners, Mexico has leapfrogged China to be ranked as the cheapest country in the world for companies looking to manufacture products for the U.S. market. India is now No. 2, followed by China and then Brazil. In fact, Mexicos cost advantages and has become so cheap that even Chinese companies are moving there to capitalize on the trade advantages that come from geographic proximity.
The influx of Chinese manufacturers began early in the decade, as China-based firms in the cellular telephone, television, textile and automobile sectors began to establish maquiladora operations in Mexico. By 2005, there were 20-25 Chinese manufacturers operating in such Mexican states Chihuahua, Tamaulipas and Baja. The investments were generally small, but the operations had managed to create nearly 4,000 jobs, Enrique Castro Septien, president of the Consejo Nacional de la Industria Maquiladora de Exportacion (CNIME), told the SourceMex news portal in a 2005 interview.
Chinas push into Mexico became more concentrated, with China-based automakers Zhongxing Automobile Co., First Automotive Works (in partnership with Mexican retail/media heavyweight Grupo Salinas), Geely Automobile Holdings (PINK: GELYF) and ChangAn Automobile Group Co. Ltd . (the Chinese partner of Ford Motor Co.) and Suzuki Motor Corp.), all announced plans to place automaking factories in Mexico.
Not all the plans would come to fruition. But Geelys plan called for a three-phase project that would ultimately involve a $270 million investment and have a total annual capacity of 300,000 vehicles . ChangAn wants to churn out 50,000 vehicles a year. Both companies are taking these steps with the ultimate goal of selling cars to U.S. consumers.
Mexicos allure as a production site that can serve the U.S. market isnt limited to China-based suitors. U.S. companies are increasingly realizing that Mexico is a better option than China. Analysts are calling it nearshoring or reverse globalization. But the reality is this: With wages on the rise in China, ongoing worries about whipsaw energy and commodity prices, and a dollar-yuan relationship thats destined to get much uglier before it has a chance of improving, manufacturers with an eye on the American market are increasingly realizing that Mexico trumps China in virtually every equation the producers run.
Suddenly, the labor cost advantage China enjoyed wasnt enough to overcome the costs of shipping finished goods thousands of miles from Asia to North America. And that reality kick-started the concept of nearshoring, concluded an investment research report by Canadian investment bank CIBC World Markets Inc.
In a world of triple-digit oil prices, distance costs money, the CIBC research analysts wrote. And while trade liberalization and technology may have flattened the world, rising transport prices will once again make it rounder.
