In accordance with US Mexico Foundation, The United States has invested approximately 250,000 million dollars in companies that are in our country, this investment is located in the northern and bajío regions and comes mostly from the automotive industry, which has achieved that exports from Mexico to the United States States are mainly automobiles and auto parts.
These productive changes for a developing economy which, in the 1980s exported mainly oil, can be encouraging. Unfortunately for Mexico these results are mediocre. Why?
A country that has a large population, that is, a potential domestic market that can trigger economic growth, with a large amount of human capital to develop, and a privileged geographic location, not only because it is a neighbor of the United States, but because it has with access to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, it has settled for the cost reduction dynamics of export companies, without generating an economic development strategy linked to this.
Now add the disinterest and lack of strategy to take advantage of the trade war between the United States and China. Mexico seems to have everything to succeed, but it continues to insist on being mediocre.
The bad thing about this scenario of disinterest is that these opportunities take time to repeat themselves, since we are in times of dizzying and rapid changes.
The automotive industry is facing a shortage of inputs, mainly microchips, which is affecting production levels and a paradigm shift towards the production of electric cars. If Mexico is proud that this industry represents 4% of the national GDP and that it is the cause of the economic development of the border states and the Bajío, what will happen when the norm is the production of electric cars and not combustion? Will Mexico be able to make the transition?
These questions lead me to remember the case of Baja California, in which the city of Tijuana was the capital of television. However, what few know is what the state economy suffered when it faced the technological change of television. This is an example of what the national economy could suffer from technological changes in the automotive industry.
Without a doubt, we are at the best time to develop an economic strategy, focused on detonating new productive capacities in the country, with special attention to technology and the development of the human capital that we have.