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

  • TTIP and economic policies in the South Atlantic
    Peter Sparding
    October 01, 2015
    This podcast is performed by Peter Sparding. TTIP negotiations, now well into their third year, are slower moving than many stakeholders in Europe and the United States had originally hop ...
  • Metals and Oil: A Tale of Two Commodities
    Authors
    Rabah Arezki
    Akito Matsumoto
    September 22, 2015
    “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” With these words Charles Dickens opens his novel “A Tale of Two Cities”. Winners and losers in a “tale of two commodities” may one day look back with similar reflections, as prices of metals and oil have seen some seismic shifts in recent weeks, months and years. This blog seeks to explain how demand — but also supply and financial market conditions — are affecting metals prices. We will show some contrast with oil, where suppl ...
  • India: One year of Modi
    Nicolas de Pedro 
    September 22, 2015
    This podcast is performed by Nicolas de Pedro. Narendra Modi completes a year as head of the Indian government with his balance sheet in credit, but the prevailing mood is one of slight d ...
  • Global Value Chains: The Missing Link in Sub-Saharan Africa’s Trade Integration
    Authors
    Roger Nord
    September 18, 2015
    Sub-Saharan Africa’s trade flows increased sharply, multiplying by a factor of five over the past 20 years. Is this boom built on commodities only?  My answer is no ! Many countries have increased their integration in global value chains. But, it is also clear that sub-Saharan Africa still has some way to go. Increased trade boosts for growth Over the last two decades, the export-to-GDP ratio in sub-Saharan Africa increased from 20½ percent in 1995 to 27½ percent in 2013. This occ ...
  • Download PDF
    Does Growth Create Jobs in the G-20 Economies?
    Authors
    Saurabh Mishra
    Prakash Loungani
    September 1, 2015
    Les fonds souverains, objet de toutes les attentions au cours des années 2000, devraient voir leur rôle de « stabilisateur » de l’économie se renforcer dans les mois à venir, en raison de la chute du prix des matières premières. Ces véhicules d’investissement doivent cependant être coordonnés avec les outils traditionnels de la politique fiscale et ne peuvent affranchir les pouvoirs publics d’effectuer à plus ou moins long terme les ajustements budgétaires que ce nouvel environnemen ...
  • Download PDF
    A chequered African history of commodity markets, part one: bauxite and aluminium
    Authors
    Yves Jégourel
    August 28, 2015
    The African endowment in mineral resources is well known and has often been a mixed blessing, according to the socalled “natural resources curse”. Bauxite, an ore that serves as a feedstock for aluminium production, is particularly present in Guinean soil but, notwithstanding its efforts to do so, this country has not yet succeeded in transforming this red treasure into a real source of social and economic development. Despite the difficult economic context and a long road ahead, th ...