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Tijuana Manufacturing

Mexican drones for use in precision agriculture operations

Mexico CorporationBy Adina Moloman

Source: www.noticias.terra.es

Scientists from CISESE together with an Aerospace Mexico Corporation, Quetzal Aeroespacial, are working on fomenting precision agriculture operations in Mexico.

Quetzal Aeroespacial is a Mexican company located in Queretaro and is specialized in the design and development of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to provide products and services aimed to the civilian sector.

CICESE, located in Ensenada, Baja California is the largest of the 27 research centers coordinated by Mexico’s National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT) with more than 500 researchers. Their main research areas are telecommunications and electronics, marine biology, microbiology, seismology, geology, optics, computer science, physical oceanography, marine ecology, among others.

Together they were investing in the research and development of small-unmanned aerial vehicles-drones to make them easier to use in Mexico farming industries. Before that, the company’s products didn’t have agriculture applications.

The company system captures high definition photo images and videos for a more recent use in precision agriculture operations.

The Benefits of Drones for crop surveillance can drastically increase farm crop yields because determining potential yields and limiting problems in a short time.   Academics from CISESE and specialist from the Mexican aerospace company are adapting a company drone solution in precision agriculture. The solution consists in seeing the true health of the fields in a color contrast. This allows agricultures’ to see how much sunlight the crop canopy absorbs. Other benefits include the management of weeds, pests and disease and at the same time reduced environmental impacts.

The advantage of utilizing drones in agriculture will help farmers to monitor and make decision on the application of water, fertilizer and pesticides.

Their product is expecting to help farmers and agri-businesses in Mexico improve their economic performance. The company is considering not selling the product but to give the service to Mexican agricultures at an affordable price.

Maquiladora Industry

Mexico and Korea: mutual recognition agreement between customs administrations

Mexico CorporationBy Adina Moloman

Sources: Maquila Portal, SAT

The bilateral relationship between Mexico and Korea has become stronger over the last ten years. Recently, the two countries agreed to continue working on customs cooperation since The Servicio de Administración Tributaria (SAT), equivalent in Mexico to the US’s IRS, and customs authorities from the South Korean Government signed a mutual recognition agreement (MRA) that acknowledge each other’s approvals in various programs what reduces the need for security and customs examinations.

This agreement will facilitate trade between the two countries. Korea will recognize any Mexico Corporation certified with the New Certified Companies Scheme, Nuevo Esquema de Empresas Certificadas (NEEC). At the same time, Mexico will recognize any Korean transnational corporation certified by their government with their Authorized Economic Operator Program.

The Authorized Economic Operator program is a voluntary program for global supply chain security and trade facilitation between countries.

The program is operated by Customs and it is based on voluntary participation of countries and companies. With this agreement the two countries will facilitate the foreign trade operations of its traders by minimizing the required lead times and costs.

Transnational companies that manufacture in Mexico willing to adopt the framework of standards, contribute to the security of the supply chain and trade facilitation worldwide.

Signing this mutual recognition agreement between Mexico and Korea acknowledge each other’s approvals in various programs what reduces the need for security and customs examinations.

Mexico becomes the first Latin American country to formalize the process to recognize the Korean Authorized Economic Operator Program.

The benefits for companies participating in this program both from Mexico and Korea are substantial: fewer physical customs inspections at their borders, priority treatment when selected for inspection, pre-clearance (documents examination before arrival of goods), simplified administrative compliance procedures, all resulting in lower costs, higher efficiency and shorter time-to-market.

Maquiladora Industry

Mexico- advantages to dominate innovation in Latin America

Mexico CorporationBy Adina Moloman

Sources: San Diego Red, ABC NEWS

The Latin America region is aiming toward structural change in order to elevate its low levels of innovation and its productivity gap. Things are changing quickly in Latin America as innovation is making headway in this region.

Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Peru are basically the main important Latin American countries that started recognizing the potential roles of science, technology, and innovation for improving the social and economic development of the region.

They are working on appropriate actions to make the regulatory system innovation friendly, and a strong patent system, which is extremely important for the investor confidence and on access to education with new technologies, etc. On the other hand, they are making a great effort that implies significant modifications in the current patterns of production, consumption, distribution, infrastructure investment etc.

Even when Chile, Peru and Colombia where the first in Latin America in attracting start-ups and create an innovation environment, they do not have the advantages that Mexico or Brazil have, which are large internal markets, the infrastructure to export world wide, the biggest education centers in Latin America to create the local talent, both are huge receivers of foreign direct investment (not that much in the innovation sector).

From all of them, Mexico is the most promising country to dominate the innovation in Latin America and for establishing manufacturing in Mexico. The arguments that are leading to this is that Mexico started to focus on improving the efficiency of its regulatory, business registration, tax processing and legal systems; it is also making great efforts in investing in education and infrastructure; has the proximity to US market and the Silicon Valley investors (so far is counting with three big innovation centers in Guadalajara, Monterrey and Tijuana with the same time zone as California); effective legal protections to undergird investor confidence. Mexico is also working in braking down monopolies; telecommunication is one of them, being a strategic sector for creating opportunities for start-ups and entrepreneurs that are creating a Mexico Corporation.

Mexico ranks 36th in ease of doing a business, comparing to 121st that Brazil ranks according to World Bank.

Both Brazil and Mexico are working to facilitate greater investments in innovation and technology and identifies gaps and needs in both the education and research areas, but these efforts are in their early stages of implementation.

Mexico Maquiladora Industry

Mexico delegation at Paris Air Show 2013

Mexico Maquiladora ProgramSources: SRE, SEDECO, Paris Air Show

The 50th International Paris Air Show, known as the world´s premier event dedicated to the aerospace industry, took place at Le Bourget Exhibition Centre.

The Paris Air Show is held every two years and brings together all the industry’s players across the globe to showcase the latest technological innovations and to network during the B2B Meeting activities organized during the show.

This year’s attendance had more than 2,200 exhibitors from 44 countries, around 150,000 trade visitors and 290 official delegations.

The Mexican official delegation consisted of 20 Mexican companies and a delegation of about 100 members from the states of Baja California, Chihuahua, Nuevo Leon, Queretaro, Sonora and Yucatan. For the first time during an international event Interjet, a Mexico Corporation presented an aircraft of its own.

The Mexico Corporation Interjet, received a Russian Superjet. Interjet plans to fly the aircraft from Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey.

As a consequence of the participation at this event, The French company, SNECMA, announced new investments in Queretaro totaling USD$35 million; the Zodiac company announced new investments of USD$25 million and the Snecma-Pretel consortium announced investments of USD$5 million.

As a result of the Baja California delegations meetings held during the participation in the 2013 Paris Air Show last month, a delegation of French companies scheduled a two-day tour in the state in search of business opportunities in the renewable energy sector. The French delegation consists of representatives of the firm DCNS, a global player in marine renewable energy.

In the last seven years there’s been a real spurt in aerospace industries manufacturing in Mexico, with growth averaging 20% a year, growing from 60 transnational corporations in 2005 to 270 aeronautics companies in 2013 that operates under a Mexico Maquiladora Program. Mexican-made aircraft parts are trucked to Canada and shipped across the Atlantic to Europe, but the USA is still the biggest commercial partner for Mexican aerospace companies.

 

Mexico Corporation

La Rumorosa II wind plant 2013

Mexico CorporationBy Adina Moloman

Sources: www.thewindpower.net, www.wilsoncenter.org

There is a huge potential in renewable energy projects in the U.S.-Mexico border region.

In the last 5 years an important growth
is evident in the wind sector in Baja California attributed to various reasons: the high quality of the resource in the region, the interest of the private sector to invest in renewable energy sources, the development of a legal framework that has encouraged the private sector to become involved in electricity generation (traditionally an area reserved for the state in Mexico), improved technologies, falling costs, increased interest in renewable energies due to rising awareness of climate change as well as financing opportunities through international carbon credit schemes.

The building of the “La Rumorosa I” wind plant was undertaken in 2009, it involved
a total investment of U.S. $26,191,715 and powers 80% of the public lighting in the city of Mexicali.

The wind farm is located in the La Rumorosa area between Tijuana and Mexicali in the Sierra de Juárez region and is the first wind plant in the La Rumorosa it served as a reference for La Rumorosa II wind plant.

Mexico’s Baja California state government owns the 10MW La Rumorosa I wind farm. A Mexico Corporation Turbopower Services constructed the plant, and the Spain’s transnational corporation Gamesa, manufactured the plant’s five turbines.

Baja California state’s second phase of wind plant la Rumorosa II is scheduled to begin this 2013 and will have an installed capacity of 100MW project. The new plant will be constructed and operated by a private firm, which so far hasn’t revealed its name.

The construction of the Rumurosa II wind farms is to generate electricity for sale to private clients or to the CFE. There is an emerging market for exporting wind power to the Californian’s market in order to satisfy California’s regulations for clean energy.

Mexico Corporation

Binational Seawater Desalination project

Mexico CorporationBy Adina Moloman

Sources: www.sdcwa.org, SANDAG

A Binational Seawater Desalination plant between Mexico-USA as a public-private partnership is the first attempt of its kind worldwide, in which both countries would be advantaged. Everything started in 2005, when the San Diego County Water Authority evaluated the feasibility of a binational seawater desalination facility.

There are different agencies involved in this effort which includes representatives from the Water Authority, Colorado River Basin states, the International Boundary and Water Commission, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and Mexican federal, state, Mexican local agencies and a private Mexico Corporation.

The proposed plant is being evaluated 
in four separate phases: (1) “Fatal flaw” review that was completed in 2010; (2) feasibility details, (3) pilot work and (4) preliminary design.

The first phase was completed in March 2010, when it was decided that the project site will be located in the city of Rosarito Beach in Baja California, Mexico, near a Federal Electric Commission (CFE) power facility. Another purpose of this phase was to find any potential “fatal flaws.” This phase also included review of
 the environmental permitting and requirements.

The second phase over feasibility details was completed by Mexico in 2012. Phase two consisted in research costing $180,000 which reviewed the pipeline alignments from the plant to the San Diego County border connections, design parameters and costs. The results of the pipeline alignment study shows that for the U.S. water supply, the coastal alternative is a good option for a delivery point near the binational wastewater treatment. A second option is that the desalted water would be delivered to a location at Otay Mesa near an existing emergency water connection that crosses the border to supply Tijuana.

This year Mexico is considering completing a study of environmental permitting requirements for the project.

The last two phase of the project are under negotiations and includes the development and operation of a pilot plant that would be constructed to research ocean source water and product water quality, followed by a preliminary design of the full-scale plant.

The facility would be built using existing reverse osmosis desalination technology and would be sized to produce 50 million gallons per day (mgd).

The plant could be designed and completed in 5 to 10 years and treated water could be available starting 2016.

Mexico Maquiladora Industry

America Movil-business diversification in Latin America

Mexico CorporationBy Adina Moloman

Sources: Finanz Nachrichten, Reuters

América Móvil—Latin America’s leading mobile phones company has announced a new acquisition.  This Mexico Corporationthat belong to Grupo Carso, SA de CV, owned by the Mexican businessman Carlos Slim, with a vast interest in the fields of communications, retailing, and finance is ready to takeover the media-and-advertising unit of Mexican live-entertainment company Corporacion Interamericana de Entretenimiento SAB (CIE)[1] for 1.67 billion pesos ($131 million).

The deal is expected to close on the second half of 2013, subject to pending approvals.

Despite of the fact that the new Mexican president talked about an increase in competition in the telecommunications sector, Telmex[2], which was acquired by América Móvil, couldn’t get the approval to set up television network in Mexico, mainly because of competition concerns.

So its more convenient strategy was to focus on acquiring media and advertising business; orienting on a Pay TV business and Net Services, not only in Mexico but in all Latin America and some in the United States.

There are two main reason for the huge corporations to invest in Latin America: first, developed economies like the U.S. are showing signs of saturation in such markets and second, the current market price in Latin America offers a good opportunity to start this type of business for the long term where the competitors are not that many.

Based on this simple market analysis America Movil, which already dominates nearly 70% of the Mexican market and half of its revenue comes from Mexico and Brazil, have started introducing the fourth-generation (4G) mobile services in a limited number of cities in Mexico at the end of last year and plans to expand this business during 2013.

The business diversification in growing economies in Latin America that are facing a small number of competitors has a positive impact in these economies because of the pressure on pricing, which is also forcing upgrades in infrastructure and quality.

 

[1] CIE- focuses on sponsorship of concerts and live performances, venue management, ticketing, souvenirs sales and artist management and representation.

[2] Telmex SA, company that owns and operates most of Mexico’s telecommunications system.

Mexico Corporation

The first Recycling Compost center in Tijuana

Mexico CorporationBy Adina Moloman

Source: Waste& Recycling News, EPA

TIJUANA CALIDAD DE VIDA is a Mexican non-profit group that is leading a small pilot project of organic waste recycling in Tijuana. This project consists in creating landscape-grade compost from organic waste: discarded fruits, vegetables and yard waste supplied by the city.

There are other non-profit agencies in Tijuana involved in this project, the Tijuana Municipality, the private sector and also the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC) who made this innovative green center happen.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is supporting these projects with cross-border funding. So far this agency provided two grants: the first $73,000 grant was provided last year as seed money for the project and $20,000 will be soon provided under the new Border 2020 Program which will be used to increase municipal capacity and to raise community awareness on the benefits of composting. More specifically the money will be used for the development of a compost practices manual that will be distributed throughout the border region, a website with composting information resources, and composting workshops.

Bi-national policies and programs that support the sustainable development of environmental infrastructure in the border region are absolutely necessary.

This center will protect the San Diego-Tijuana watershed by recycling waste that would have otherwise gone in to landfills keeping the solution from working upstream into Tijuana.

The compost center will produce about 150 tons of compost in its first year.

The Tijuana Composting center is the first of its kind on the Mexican side of the border. Some San Diego composting facility personnel were brought in to help the new center with institutional composting practices and procedures. The Urban Composting Center has already trained more than 170 individuals from various public institutions and a Mexico Corporation (private sector) to educate the public on how composting is used to redirect food, landscape and other organics from dumps and landfills.

Mexican Maquiladoras

2013 Mexican Federal Revenue Law

Mexican MaquiladorasBy Adina Moloman

Source: PWC

The 2013 Mexican Federal Revenue Law was published in December 2012 and entered into force on January 1, 2013.

This is the first Federal Revenue Decree issued by President Enrique Peña Nieto’s new Mexican government, it will maintain the current tax structure and implemented a delay to the proposed cut in corporate income tax.

This info concerns mainly the transnational corporations located in Mexico that are operating under a Mexican legal entity. For tax purposes the Mexican Maquiladoras are treated just as any other Mexico Corporation.

The applicable annual rate of Income Tax is 30% and was expecting a decrease to 29% during 2013 and eventually returns to 28% in 2014 as it was in 2009. According to this decree the change of the corporate income tax rate to 29% will enter into force on January 1, 2014.

The Mexican Federal Revenue Law also mentions that: the withholding tax on interest paid to banks resident in countries with which Mexico has an operational tax treaty remains at 4.9%; transnational corporations engaged in maquila operations through a Mexico Shelter Company are subject to an exemption from permanent establishment rules at least until December 31, 2013; there is no change in the income tax exemption for any financial derivative transactions in which a portion of the swap refers to the interbank interest rate (TIIE) and also there is no change  in the provisions regarding overseas pensions and also the flat tax. The duties for discharging residual waters extends till December 31, 2013 and the rates applicable to beer and alcoholic beverages are remain the same in 2013.

Amnesty program for taxes payable until end-2012 are included, that mentions the following: for the past fiscal years up to 2006, the program provides an 80% reduction in a taxpayer’s tax liabilities and 100% of late interest, if the balance is paid in lump sum to the Administration of Taxation (SAT); for the years between 2007 though 2012, there will be a full exemption from penalties and interest if 100% of the tax liability is paid to SAT.

 

A new joint venture in Mexico: Lafarge and Elementia

A new joint venture in Mexico: Lafarge and Elementia

Mexico CorporationBy Adina Moloman

Sources: Reuters, The Wall Street Journal

Mexico Corporation Elementia is a building materials conglomerate that just a few months ago entered into the cement making business with its cement division known as Cementos Fortaleza.

A newly cement Mexican company in a market well dominated by the giant Cemex, followed by the Holcim Apasco, a unit of Switzerland-based Holcim, which all together are dominating almost the entire Mexican cement market, came as a surprise in its intention of penetrating this market by negotiating a join venture with the French company Lafarge. Lafarge is one of the world’s largest cement companies.

The French corporation operates in central Mexico since 2004 where its two Mexican plants have a combined capacity of close to one million tons.

This aggressive plan for Cementos Fortaleza is well analyzed by its two founders, the richest man in the world Carlos Slim and Antonio del Valle the owner of the chemicals and plastic tubing corporation Mexichem.

Cementos Fortaleza target markets are retail clients  (small scale buyers) in order to capture between 3 and 5 per cent of the national market within a year. It is expecting that the joint venture will close in the second half of this year, where Elementia will have 53 per cent of the joint venture and Lafarge 47 percent.

The Mexican corporation Elementia, since it launched the business in October 2012, is already producing 1 million tones per year in its plant in central Mexico.

After the joint venture the new created entity will have a capacity of some 2 million tons of cement per year. One of the reason for whom the world cement leader Lafarge is accepting this combination is because this will significantly strengthen Lafarge’s position in Mexico and also is creating a good opportunity to start penetrating other Latin America’s cement markets.

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