President Calderon Meets with Castro

Mayor Julián Castro of San Antonio, Texas and Mexican leader, President Calderón, discussed business investment and immigration, yesterday in Mexico City. Via San Antonio News, here is an account of what went on in the meeting that lasted nearly an hour on Monday evening: "Mexican President Felipe Calderón expressed his appreciation to Mayor Julián Castro for San Antonio’s pro-Mexico relationship, especially in business investments [...]. In the meeting at Los Pinos, the Mexican president’s official residence here, Castro declared support for comprehensive immigration reform and listed business investments San Antonio companies have made in Mexico." Continue reading here.

IMF Predicts Global Crisis if U.S. Cannot Agree on Debt Ceiling Solution

As MexBizNews reported today, "A loss of investor confidence in U.S. debt could have "universally large and negative" effects on the rest of the world, the International Monetary Fund said this week in its annual assessment of the U.S. economy."

The IMF delivered its warning as the White House and Congress struggled to reach a deal to increase the federal government's borrowing limit before an Aug. 2 deadline.

A downgrade would be "very damaging for both the US economy and the rest of the world" by hitting stock markets and pushing interest rates higher, IMF senior adviser Rodrigo Valdes told reporters. It would be new territory for U.S. debt, so "there's a lot of uncertainty," he said. "Nobody really knows what would be the true effect."

Both Toyota and Honda Planning to Build Plants in Mexico

Via Maquilaportal.com:

"According to Global Insight, Honda and Toyota need a plant in North America, since only 59% of the autos they sell in the region are manufactured in North America; while Nissan manufactures 85% of the cars sold in the region, which provides a competitive advantage."

Hence this analysis, Japanese automakers, Honda and Toyota, are looking for a plot of land suitable to install a new plant in Mexico, different sectors of the automotive industry assure.

"In both cases it would be their second plant in Mexico, since Honda already has one in El Salto, Jalisco, and Toyota does in Baja California."

Brazil Tariff Barriers Complicate Trade Deal with Mexico

Via Bloomberg.com:

"Brazil’s existing tariff barriers complicate promised negotiations on a free-trade agreement with Mexico and there is no date to start formal talks, said Mexico’s undersecretary of industry and commerce, Lorenza Martinez. “What is the most difficult part is to solve the known tariff barriers that Brazil has,” Lorenza Martinez said in an interview at the Mexican embassy yesterday in Tokyo. “It is more difficult to do business in Brazil than in Mexico. It has a more complicated system to operate. That’s the part that makes this agreement a little bit more difficult than others.”

Brazil is Latin America’s largest economy and Mexico, the second biggest, relies on the U.S. to buy about 80 percent of its exports.

"Separately, Mexico hasn’t changed a forecast for the country to create 557,000 new private sector jobs this year as it recovers from the global downturn in 2009, she said. “The recovery has been faster than in previous cycles,” she said, adding that manufacturing firms have led the rebound."

FIAT to Export 50,000 Cars From Mexico to China Each Year

A few days ago, the first 100 cars of FIAT's Cinquecento model assembled in Mexico arrived in China. The FIAT manufacturing plant, which is putting together the latest edition of the Cinquecento is located in Toluca, Mexico and is quickly becoming another example of the valued quality engineering that Mexico offers. The Italy-based auto assembler plans to manufacture 100,000 of these units by February 2012. Victor Villanueva, CEO of Fiat Mexico said that Fiat will sell 50% of their production to the Chinese market. Click here to see to what other countries the Cinquecento will go.

Mexico Attracts Investment Interest of Japanese Businessmen

In the past 3 years, approximately 25 Japanese auto parts manufacturers have moved to Mexico, Raul Urteaga Triani, Head of Mexico-Japan Economic Association Bureau in the Ministry of the Economy, declared. Part of this migration of Japanese companies to Mexico is from the United States to Mexico. As Maquila portal reported Triani saying, “Japanese companies which were previously manufacturing at states such as Michigan, Ohio or Illinois started moving their production to Mexico to be near the automobiles assemblers operating in Mexico."