Investments in Mexico pay off for Japanese carmakers
Japanese carmakers have been pouring money into Mexico in recent years.
Squeezed by higher production costs as a result of the weak yen, many have set up production lines in Mexico, lured by the country’s inexpensive labour and easy access to the key North American market.
In fact, so modern and cost-effective are their Mexican operations that General Motors, the leading US carmarker, this week tapped Nissan to help it build small cargo vans to sell in the US and Canada. Continue reading »
Mexico’s auto boom
The newest figures from the Mexican auto industry association, AMIA, point to continued powerful growth not only from the car makers themselves but from associated industries.
Mexico has almost doubled car production since 2009, and will be producing 4m cars by 2017, up from 2.9m last year, AMIA reckons, thanks to new investments from Nissan, Audi, Mazda and Honda. Continue reading »
Mexico: getting some Audi love
The auto industry’s love affair with Mexico seems to know no bounds these days.
Just days after Japan’s Honda announced the creation of a $470m transmission plant in the country, it was the turn of Audi to laid the foundation stone for a $1.3bn assembly plant in Mexico over the weekend.
Aimed at challenging BMW’s global leadership of the international luxury SUV market, the new factory is expected to come on stream in 2016, building 150,000 Q5 SUVs a year. Continue reading »
Honda ramps up Mexico investment
The central Mexican region known as El Bajío is known as the nation’s colonial heartland, its grain belt and a hotbed of fervent Catholicism. Now Japanese auto production can be added to the list.
While Barack Obama and the Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto were talking in Mexico City about jobs, Honda was announcing the creation of 1,500 of them in an $470m transmission plant to be built in Celaya in El Bajío. Continue reading »
Mexican economy: all pumped up
More good news for the Mexican economy, but a grave warning too from a man who knows.
The indicator of economic activity for October issued on Thursday by the national statistics institute rose 4.3 per cent year on year, up by more than half a percentage point than most analysts had forecast. Continue reading »
Brazil: Argentina strikes again
With friends like these, who needs enemies? Just when it seems like Brazil’s economy is on the mend, guess who wants to put a spanner in the works? Argentina.
A supposed partner under the Mercosul trade agreements, Argentina is proving to be right burden. Readers will recall that the hard landing of Argentina’s economy this year is estimated by Morgan Stanley to have shaved a fifth off Brazilian industrial production growth.
Now Argentina could worsen this outlook by calling on Brazil to delay the beginning of free trade in the car industry in 2013 and instead increase barriers. Continue reading »
Audi revs up in Mexico
And the winner is…San José Chiapa. This small Mexican town in the southern state of Puebla is to be the location of Audi’s first production facility in Latin America’s second-biggest economy.
Audi will use the Mexican plant to build the successor to its current Audi Q5 SUV, with planned annual output of 150,000 units. Construction work on the plant is expected to begin by mid-2013 and the first vehicles are expected to roll out of the factory gates by the start of 2016. Continue reading »
Mexico goes for the gold in auto production
Mexico may not be breaking records at London’s Olympic Games but back home it is racking them up. On Monday, the country’s vehicle manufacturer’s association, Amia, reported that production in July reached 238,146. That is the largest number of vehicles Mexico has ever produced during that month. It is also 17.7 per cent higher than last July’s figure. Continue reading »
Mexico: auto superstar
When presenters of the BBC’s popular Top Gear automobile show used the launch of a Mexican-made sports car earlier this year to mock the national character, they probably should have checked their facts first.
If they had, they would quickly have realised that Mexico has become one of the most efficient and competitive automobile producers in the world. Continue reading »
Mexico looks up as VW looks south
Volkswagen, the German automobile manufacturer, clearly sees a large part of its future in Mexico. On Wednesday, the maker of the Beetle and Jetta, among other models, said that it would invest US$550m in a new engine plant in the central state of Guanajuato.
The company says that the idea is to produce 330,000 engines starting in 2013 that will supply vehicle production at its Mexican plant in Puebla, as well as to its US plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Continue reading »
To visit Volkswagen’s plant in Puebla, a couple of hours south-east of Mexico City, is to witness the country’s export-led economic recovery. The plant, which can produce 2,100 vehicles a day at full capacity, expects this year to churn out 420,000 units – markedly up on last year’s 320,000. Continue reading »
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