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
    Future of African Cities Project: Rabat and Salé – Bridging the Gap
    Authors
    Nchimunya Hamukoma
    Nicola Doyle
    Archimedes Muzenda
    November 29, 2018
    The twin cities of Rabat and Salé on Morocco’s west coast embody prominence in Morocco’s past and present, Rabat as capital and Salé as the third most populous city. Less than 20 years ago, however, Salé was charac¬terised by large slums, high unemployment, poor service delivery and limited mobility. Today, it is a changed city, providing housing to the majority of Rabat’s working class, with a modern tram linking the two cities. Morocco’s ‘Cities without Slums’ programme, launched ...
  • Download PDF
    Assessing the EU-North Africa trade agreements
    Authors
    Uri Dadush
    Yana Myachenkova
    November 27, 2018
    - The trade agreements that the European Union has with North African countries – with Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia – are often seen as having delivered disappointing results since they came into force during the 2000s. The four North African countries have seen insufficient growth in their exports to the EU, and have undergone only limited diversification. In the meantime, the EU’s exports to North Africa have grown quite rapidly. - Economic growth in North Africa has been ...
  • Download PDF
    Building a Youth Euro-Med Community through Learning and Research Mobility: Incubators and Obstacles
    Authors
    Amal El Ouassif
    November 26, 2018
    Young researchers face several challenges in getting recognition for their work at the level of institutions and senior intellectual communities. Obstacles include trust issues, funding restrictions, and linguistic and cultural barriers. To these aforementioned limitations, researchers and university students from the Southern Mediterranean shore face an additional struggle, which is access to mobility. The latter is a key driver of quality in the research field. Depending on the su ...
  • Download PDF
    De l’assombrissement des perspectives mondiales aux stratégies spéculatives : comment comprendre le repli des cours des métaux ?
    Authors
    Yves Jégourel
    November 26, 2018
    Les cours de la quasi-totalité des métaux industriels et précieux se sont inscrits, depuis plusieurs mois, dans une dynamique baissière. Si le resserrement de la politique monétaire américaine et l’appréciation consécutive du dollar expliquent en partie cette trajectoire, c’est avant tout l’amoncellement des nuages dans le ciel macroéconomique mondial qui a pesé sur les marchés. L’escalade des tensions commerciales entre les États-Unis et, parmi d’autres pays, la Chine, ne peut être ...
  • International Economic Cooperation in Troubled Times: A Call for Strong Action by the G20
    Authors
    Uri Dadush
    Axel Berger
    Andreas Freytag
    Simon J. Evenett
    Christian von Haldenwang
    Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz
    Raul Ochoa
    Agustin Redonda
    Karl P. Sauvant
    November 26, 2018
    *The recommendations put forth below have been published, both print and online, in the Financial Times.  The leaders of the G20 will meet on 30 November and 1 December in Buenos Aires for their annual summit. They need to acknowledge that the last two years have been characterized by strong headwinds for the world economy. This time, however, it is not a mixture of poor macroeconomic policies and bad business decisions – as in 2008 when they met in Washington for their first summi ...
  • Poutine et la campagne d’Afrique
    Authors
    Mehdi Benomar
    November 25, 2018
    Lors du Forum Russie-Afrique, tenu récemment à Moscou, le ministre russe des Affaires étrangères, Sergey Lavrov, a souligné que les relations entre son pays et ses partenaires africains ne seront pas “impactées par des facteurs extérieurs”. Venant du chef de la diplomatie russe depuis  2004, la formule peut paraître courte mais, à demi-mot, elle est porteuse de la détermination de Moscou de renforcer sa présence en Afrique, surtout que le forum de Moscou s’est tenu en préparation d ...
  • War is Peace
    Authors
    Helmut Sorge
    November 23, 2018
    BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU The term “Orwellian,” the descriptive of totalitarianism or authoritarian repression has entered the language of literature with many of its neologisms, including “Big Brother,” “thought police,” double think,” “un person,” “face crime,” and “thought crime.” George Orwell, the British author, had a sinister, utopian vision of the world, himself obviously disappointed by Marxist theories, communist dictators, or his experience during the Spanish civil war ...
  • European Commitment in the Development-Security Nexus in Africa: Does the European Union practice what it preaches?
    Authors
    Bouchra Rahmouni
    November 22, 2018
    Nowadays, links between development and security are widely recognized by many, just as they were during the development of the Marshall Plan. As mentioned in the United Nations "A More Secure World" report, threats to one are intrinsically a threat to all. Thus, 17 UN-agreed goals were agreed upon to help end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all by 2030, including goal 16 for "peaceful and inclusive societies". Last month, the UN’s inaugural Africa Dialogue S ...
  • What was discussed at the Climate Change Workshop in Paris?
    Authors
    Maha Skah
    November 15, 2018
    The workshop “Coping with Climate Change” gathered experts, policy-makers and researchers to discuss recent econometric work on decoupling greenhouse gas emissions and economic growth. It explored different policies and instruments that countries and financial institutions are adopting to cope with the effects of climate change (adaptation) and to contribute to the global effort to combat climate change (mitigation).    Session 1: Decoupling of Emissions and Economic Activity The ...
  • Download PDF
    Le franc CFA : impact sur les taux d’inflation et de croissance des pays d’Afrique de l’Ouest et d’Afrique centrale sur la période 1999-2017
    Authors
    Henri-Louis Vedie
    November 14, 2018
    Depuis plus de 70 ans, le franc CFA est la monnaie commune à quatorze pays du continent africain. Procéder à une comparaison entre les taux d’inflation et de croissance des pays membres de l’Union économique monétaire de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (UEMOA) et de la Communauté économique et monétaire de l’Afrique centrale (CEMAC), permet d’analyser les taux d’inflation et de croissance d’une vaste région regroupant deux communautés : l’une, ayant choisi le franc CFA comme monnaie, composée ...