Mexico needs to introduce IT into the running of the economy if it is to be globally competitive, not as a low-wage assembly country but as an advanced industrial nation
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hrough
the application of its e-Mexico
plan the government
is determined to turn Mexico into an advanced economy with high-value
exports. Rocío Ruiz Chávez,
the Vice-Secretary of Economy, sums up this ambition when she says:
“If Mexico is to be in the vanguard of exporting nations, it has
to shift from basic manufacturing and assembling,” she says. “More
than half of Mexico’s exports are basically assembled products.
This makes us vulnerable because, if there is a crisis, the companies
can move very easily to other countries.”
Mexico is unlikely to suffer the sort of
economic crisis that has befallen other Latin American countries, but
Ms Ruiz is very awarethat global competition means manufacturers seek
the lowest-cost location. China is one of the newly emerging economies
she mentions where labour is cheaper and where vast amounts of foreign
direct investment are now flowing.
To remain competitive, the government is
determined to introduce IT into the running of the economy and the management
of business. Much of what is produced in Mexico is either copied or
merely part of an international corporation’s global operations,
Ms Ruiz says. “We have to move into the area of design ourselves
– from ‘Made in Mexico’ to ‘Created in Mexico’.
This concept is applicable to all our main export industries, whether
automotives, electronics, textiles, leather goods or footwear, where
we are losing competitiveness.”
The e-economy plan is intended to boost
ICT (information, communications and technology) throughout the country
to make business more efficient. In particular, the Ministry of the
Economy, in collaboration with other departments and with Bancomex,
a Mexican development and international trade bank that focuses on small
and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), has put together a programme to
develop Mexico’s software industry.
Ms Ruiz points out that Mexico’s investment in ICT, as a percentage
of GDP, is less than half of the world average. “If we don’t
have a developed software industry, it will delay the development of
other industries,” she says.
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| The government aims to expand software production to £3 billion a year and to position Mexico as the region’s leader in the IT sector, so encouraging further industrial development |
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The
use of IT in SMEs is virtually non-existent and demand is concentrated
in only a handful of sectors. There is as yet no infrastructure to encourage
cluster development and there are estimated to be fewer than 500 software
companies in the entire country. Part of the plan is to help SMEs introduce
ICT, and pilot programmes have begun with a grocery chain and a hotel
group. Among the targets the ministry hopes to achieve by 2010 are:
for Mexico to reach the same level of investment in IT as the rest of
the world; to expand software production to £3 billion a year;
and, more ambitiously, to position Mexico as Latin America’s leader
in the IT sector.
Ms Ruiz acknowledges that to achieve these
goals will require massive foreign direct investment. She believes the
UK could benefit from investing in Mexico because of the latter’s
free-trade agreement with the US. “At the same time, Mexico is
interested in entering other markets, because our exports are mainly
to the US. The European Union interests us because of its diversity,”
she adds.
Jose Luis Romero Hicks, President of Bancomex, says it is
“unbelievable” that Mexico, the world’s ninth largest
economy and one which accounts for about half of all Latin American
exports, spends such a small proportion of its GDP on improving business
efficiency through IT. He says: “Mexico doesn’t want to be
a low-cost manufacturing country in the future. On the contrary, it
seeks a fair remuneration for people’s work.”
Mr Hicks believes that Mexico’s competitive
advantage lies in the fact that it has the economic weight to withstand
major fluctuations in the global economy. “You can paint a pretty
picture for the risk analysts, but they want proof that, when there
is an emergency, it can be handled in an orderly fashion,” he says.
“Mexico has proven it can do this, which is a very important competitiveness
indicator.”
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