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
    Peacekeeping Missions in the Time of Coronavirus: New Configurations and New Challenges
    Authors
    El Mostafa Rezrazi
    May 27, 2020
    In discussing the potential role of peacekeeping missions in the context of the threat of the Coronavirus pandemic, two main issues arise. The first is of a legal nature, and the second is linked to the management of expenditures and budgets. Legally, the duties of peacekeeping missions are defined by the United Nations Security Council resolutions that mandate the creation of a mission. Financially, UN member states have become less willing to finance peacekeeping operations (PKO ...
  • Challenges Africa is facing in light of Covid-19
    May 27, 2020
    Next Einstein Forum Managing Director Nathalie Munyampenda talks with Policy Center for the New South Senior Fellow Khalid Chegraoui about the challenges Africa is facing in light of Covid-19. This unprecedented health crisis is severely testing Africa's social, economic and political r...
  • الغير متوقع والعولمة المتقدمة
    Authors
    Fathallah Oualalou
    May 26, 2020
    يتطابق القرن الواحد والعشرين مع "المرحلة القصوى" للعولمة عبر كل أبعادها في مجالات الإنتاج والتبادل والتكنولوجيا والثقافة. ومع تقدمها السريع أصبحت العولمة أكثر "تعقيدا" ومحملة بكثير من "اللايقين". هكذا أصبح الغير متوقع السمة الغالبة للتطورات الجيوسياسية والاقتصادية في عهدنا. لقد عرف العالم منذ بداية القرن، أي خلال عشرين سنة فقط ثلاثة هزات قوية وغير متوقعة. أولها تمثل في حدث جيوسياسي غير مسبوق عبر اعتداءات 11 شتنبر 2001 التي ضربت مدينة نيويورك، والثانية تمثلت في الأزمة الاقتصادية لس ...
  • Mondialisation avancée et imprévisibilité
    Authors
    Fathallah Oualalou
    May 26, 2020
    Le XXIème siècle est celui du « stade suprême » de la mondialisation, avec toutes ses manifestations aux niveaux de la production, de l’échange, de la technologie et de la culture. Avec l’accélération de son avancée, la mondialisation est devenue de plus en plus « complexe » (Thierry de Mont Brial), et, donc, chargée « d’incertitudes » (Edgar Morin). L’imprévisibilité est ainsi devenue la marque de notre temps. Depuis le début du siècle et, donc, en à peine 20 ans, la planète a sub ...
  • Download PDF
    Une école en ligne d'avenir, d'équité et de qualité pour tous : Réflexions autour d'un modèle bien conçu
    Authors
    Aomar Ibourk
    Tayeb Ghazi
    May 23, 2020
    Par ces temps de Coronavirus, l’éducation, au Maroc, comme partout ailleurs à travers le monde, est amenée à se tourner vers des alternatives à distance. Certains voient en ce changement un risque de creusement des inégalités déjà existantes en matière d’accès, de qualité et de rétention. D’autres, saisissent cette nouvelle expérience pour ouvrir les voies de l’innovation et de la massification d’une éducation de qualité pour tous. Or, ces opportunités offertes, et ses souhaits expr ...
  • The Gravity of the Threat
    Authors
    Helmut Sorge
    May 22, 2020
    On February 3, 2003, Colin Powell, U.S. President George Bush’s Secretary of State, informed the United Nations Security Council about secret information collected by the U.S. about Iraq’s weapons of mass destructions. “Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions,” he said. There was “no doubt in my mind” that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear weapons program, and the invasion of Iraq was urgent and justified, because “the gravity of this ...
  • ADEL Portrait, Leonardo Párraga, Executive Director of the BogotArt Foundation
    Authors
    Sabine Cessou
    May 22, 2020
    He is a young man like no other. One can spot him easily in a crowd by the way he dresses and addresses the issues with which he is concerned. Leonardo Párraga, an award-winning social entrepreneur and alternative education activist, was born in Colombia with the soul of an artist. He writes poetry, engages with photography, and finds inspiration in the writings of Walt Whitman, whom he describes as the poet of “interconnectedness”. At 25, he left Bogotá for Harvard University, for ...
  • Download PDF
    Defining the Nation: Protest and National Identity in North Africa
    Authors
    Hisham Aidi
    May 22, 2020
    This paper takes a comparative look at Sudan, Morocco, and Algeria, at the rise of Nubian and Amazigh rights groups, and their attempts to redefine national identity. We examine: 1/ how Nubian rights groups have sparked what is being called a Kushite revival in Sudan, and are pushing for a change in educational policy and archaeological practice to engender a new historiography and national narrative; 2/ how Amazigh movements in Morocco and Algeria are similarly trying to expand con ...
  • Covid-19 and the Implementation of The SDGs in Africa
    Authors
    Kwamboka Kiangoi
    May 22, 2020
    For Africa, this new decade began full of promise to achieve the 2030 deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals and on its way to realising the goals and priorities of Agenda 2063. With the entry of the intra-African trade from the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement, which comes into effect on July 1st 2020, an estimated combined gross domestic product (GDP) of more than US$3.4 trillion expected to trickle in the Continent. This revenue estimation is good ne ...