Back

COMEXI-PCNS webinar series 2024: Nearshoring boom: lessons from Mexico and Morocco

May 30, 2024
Related topics: 

Nearshoring in Mexico

Nearshoring in Mexico presents both importance and challenges for businesses. The country's proximity to the United States, its largest trading partner, offers strategic advantages such as reduced transportation costs and shorter lead times, making it an attractive destination for nearshoring operations. Additionally, Mexico boasts a skilled labor force, particularly in industries like automotive, aerospace, and electronics manufacturing, which align well with the needs of many nearshoring companies. Moreover, Mexico benefits from trade agreements like the USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement), providing preferential access to key markets. However, nearshoring in Mexico also faces challenges, including security concerns in certain regions, bureaucratic hurdles, and regulatory complexities that may impede the ease of doing business. Infrastructure constraints, such as inadequate transportation networks and energy supply, can increase operational costs and pose logistical challenges for companies. Addressing these challenges while leveraging Mexico's strategic advantages is crucial for maximizing the potential of nearshoring in the country.

Nearshoring in Morocco

Nearshoring in Morocco is significant due to its proximity to Europe. This stability, coupled with developed infrastructure and efficient logistics, facilitates seamless operations and reduces investor uncertainties. It offers advantages like reduced transportation costs and access to a skilled workforce, particularly in the engineering and IT sectors. Trade agreements and government investments in infrastructure support nearshoring activities, making Morocco attractive for European companies to optimize their supply chains. The country's political stability, developed infrastructure, and efficient logistics bolster its appeal to investors. Macro factors such as trade openness and stable exchange rates further enhance its attractiveness. Moreover, Morocco boasts solid legal frameworks that prioritize and protect business rights and economic incentives, ensuring a stable and predictable business environment. However, challenges persist, including skill mismatches, technology transfer, and SME upgrading. Addressing these, alongside pressing concerns like achieving carbon neutrality and digitalizing the economy, is essential for Morocco to fully leverage its potential as a competitive nearshoring hub and sustain its appeal to foreign investors.

Importance of the webinar

In this context, the exchange of experiences and lessons learned between Mexico and Morocco is instrumental in bolstering their nearshoring opportunities and overcoming challenges in this domain. By sharing insights into their respective nearshoring endeavors, both countries can leverage each other's strengths and address common obstacles more effectively. Through collaboration and knowledge sharing, COMEXI and PCNS can contribute to identifying innovative solutions, actionable strategies, and the maximal capitalization of trends in the global nearshoring landscape. This exchange can also result in ideas that foster mutual growth and competitiveness in the nearshoring sector, that help drive economic development and create new opportunities for both nations.

RELATED CONTENT

  • Download PDF
    Morocco’s Decarbonization Pathway Part I: Introduction to a Joint Study
    Authors
    Rim Berahab
    Chami Abdelilah
    Derj Atar
    Hammi Ibtissem
    Morazzo Mariano
    Naciri Yassine
    Afaf Zarkik
    with the technical support of AFRY
    June 28, 2021
    During the 2015 Paris Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), governments pledged to limit the global temperature increase to well below 2°C above pre- industrial levels, to peak emissions as soon as possible, and to achieve carbon neutrality in the second half of the century. Yet, even assuming full implementation of the commitments made by governments in Paris, the global concentration of greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions will ...
  • Opening Science Through the Decolonization of Knowledge
    Authors
    Bushra Ebadi
    June 28, 2021
    UNESCO is leading a two-year consultation process to draft a Recommendation on Open Science in order to increase citizen engagement with science and improve the distribution and production of science globally. An intergovernmental special committee meeting of technical and legal experts reviewed the draft text of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science in May 2021. An approved draft will be shared with Member States in August 2021, and will go to the 41st session of the UNESCO Gen ...
  • A Gruesome Picture
    Authors
    Helmut Sorge
    Helmut Sorge
    June 25, 2021
    The German town of Dinslaken, roughly 70,000 residents, has not really made a mark on history, but the former coal mining community still managed to get onto the front pages of national newspapers. Dinslaken became a hotspot for German jihadis, ready to join the radical Islamic State. Between 2011 and 2013 an Islamic group, 25 members, rented space just next to the office of the local commissioner of integration. About half of the group followed the call to arms, to fight the infide ...
  • Download PDF
    Rapport annuel sur la géopolitique de l’Afrique 2021
    Authors
    Sous la direction de
    Abdelhak Bassou
    Nezha Alaoui M’hammdi
    Joseph Alain Sissao
    Yazid Benhadda
    Hanae Bezad
    Afua Boatemaa Yakohene
    Nouzha Chekrouni
    Khalid Chegraoui
    Salma Daoudi
    Hajar El Alaoui
    Rachid El Houdaigui
    Amal El Ouassif
    Abdessalam Saad Jaldi
    Mohammed Loulichki
    Jamal Machrouh
    Souha Majidi
    Hamza Mjahed
    Sara Hasnaa Mokaddem
    Alioune Ndiaye
    El Mostafa Rezrazi
    Jo Ann Takyiwah Sackey
    Oussama Tayebi
    Akram Zaoui
    June 23, 2021
    Cette édition du Rapport géopolitique de l’Afrique, la quatrième, s’inscrit dans la droite ligne de la philosophie et de l’esprit du Policy Center for the New South, qui milite pour une Afrique partie intégrante du Sud global et acteur, en devenir, dans les affaires mondiales. L’Afrique comme continent et comme espace est le théâtre où se déploient les actions des Africains pour réagir et interagir avec les conjonctures internationales, et l’Afrique comme populations et institutions ...
  • APSACO 2021 - Atelier : Présentation du rapport : Dossiers sur l'EI
    June 23, 2021
    Les événements survenus ces sept dernières années en Irak et en Syrie constituent l'une des pages les plus sombres de l'histoire récente. Ce que l'on appelle l'État islamique (ÉI) a réussi à contrôler une zone de la taille de la Grande-Bretagne et à soumettre ses habitants d'une main de...
  • APSACO 2021 - WORKSHOP : Report Presentation: ISIS Files
    June 23, 2021
    The events in Iraq and Syria over the last seven years constitute one of the darkest pages in recent history. The so-called Islamic State (IS) managed to control an area the size of Britain and dominated its residents with an iron fist. It subjugated, terrorized and confiscated property...