Since 2013, Garza Merodio has been CEO of Orestia, a manufacturing company in Mexico that exports to North America, Latin America and Asia. From 2013 to 2020 she served as president of the ICC Mexico and from 2020 to 2022 as vice president of the organization worldwide.
Due to the bottlenecks that have arisen in the value chains after the lack of some supplies, companies have stopped using the model just in timethat is to say, they have forgotten the warehouses and inventories ready at any moment to start their production, Garza Merodio points out in an interview with Expansion.
“We are seeing that the value chains are being reconfigured. Companies are seeking to diversify, they are continually evaluating risk against efficiency, which is why they are starting to have new suppliers in different areas, which opens an opportunity for Mexico to participate in the reconfiguration of value chains,” he said.
The businesswoman stressed that “there is already a long way to go”, such as that of the automotive industry with its robust value chain made up of assemblers in Mexico and auto parts companies, as well as in the manufacturing, aerospace and household appliance sectors. Despite this, she considered that it is “essential” to provide more certainty to investments.
“This vocation for international trade can be very useful to us despite the fact that internal conditions are not ideal for it, because unfortunately we are not providing the legal certainty that is required to bring investments, but we see that companies continue to trust Mexico. . Of course, continue insisting that legal certainty for investments is essential and that we cannot send the wrong messages”, he asserted.
In some of these areas the country has lowered its performance. According to the latest edition of Doing Business, a study that measures the regulation to do business carried out by the World Bank, Mexico fell in the classification of items such as cross-border trade -where it went from an index of 82.1 in 2019 to 69 in 2020- , while in the contract compliance segment it went from a rating of 67 to 43.
On the other hand, to combat high levels of inflation, international trade and value chains, Garza Morodio considered that the increase in interest rates will not be enough. From his perspective, he merits keeping markets open, that is, making trade more dynamic, as opposed to adding tariffs or closing borders.