The Conference is designed for the following people:

1.       Businesspeople interested in selling their products to Mexican buyers, importing products from Mexico, and/or becoming a supplier to Mexico’s maquiladora industry. The organizers of the conference will match potential Mexican buyers/sellers with participants in private business-to-business sessions.

2.       Anybody interested in learning the mechanics of doing business with Mexico, Canada, or the U.S. During the event, topical experts will be discussing the various aspects of conducting cross-border business.

3.       Businesspeople wishing to network with counterparts from Mexico, Canada, and the U.S.

Conference Topics:

•Business-to-business sessions:  Meet purchasing managers from Mexico’s maquiladora industry and from local production firms.

•Union Pacific’s $400 million Santa Teresa diesel refueling and intermodal yard project – the biggest project of its kind on the U.S.-Mexico border. Meet and interact with Union Pacific officials.

•The Foxconn project in San Jeronimo (across from the Santa Teresa Port of Entry) – the largest maquiladora in Mexico and the producer of Dell computers.

•Overview of New Mexico and Chihuahua’s cross-border strategies.

•Border security and trade.

•Financing transactions in tough economic times.

•International trade resources for businesses.

•The economic future of the maquiladora industry

Cost:

Conference: $99

Corporate Sponsorship: $1,000 (Includes an exhibition table, space for your banner to be displayed, and admission for five people to the conference.)

Sponsorship: $500 (Includes an exhibition table and admission for two to the conference.)

Banner Sponsorship: $130 (Have your banner displayed at the conference.)

Registration:

To register visit: www.nafta-institute.com/register/

For more information visit: www.nafta-institute.com

The Borderplex (Las Cruces, El Paso and Ciudad Juarez) and Spaceport America were described as “two major facilities” in the article. Virgin Galactic’s world headquarters and the revitalization of border cities such as Santa Teresa due to the Foxconn facility were highlighted as well.

By Gabriel Vasquez

The Santa Teresa Port of Entry could be a model for effectual cross-border transportation and economic development, if only the right pieces fall into place, said Francisco Uranga, Foxconn vice president and chief business operations officer for Latin America.

Francisco Uranga

Uranga, speaking during an economic forum held by the Mesilla Valley Economic Development Alliance Friday, Oct. 8, urged local business leaders to rally local, regional and state legislators to focus their economic development efforts on improving infrastructure in Santa Teresa that has “tremendous potential” for bi-national development. “There are tremendous opportunities here to create a transportation metroplex that serves the purposes of the industrial companies on both sides of the border,” Uranga said. “People must realize the potential for the entire region, because as it is now, we’re being extremely inefficient with our transportation in this area.”

Uranga was instrumental in bringing the 500-acre Foxconn manufacturing facility to San Jeronimo, Mexico, which employs about 6,000 people and manufactures roughly 13,000 computers, laptops and servers each day. Foxconn is a Taiwanese industrial giant, building the majority of electronic components for popular companies such as Apple, Nokia, Motorola, HP and others. Foxconn has 1.1 million employees worldwide and is growing at an astounding rate, increasing profits by 67 percent in 2009.

When the San Jeronimo Foxconn facility was built in 2009, it was anticipated that the facility would bring many supply and logistics companies to the U.S. side of the border, which would significantly increase traffic through the Santa Teresa crossing and prompt economic development on both sides of the border.

That progress has been slow in coming, however, Uranga said, for various reasons. The approval and subsequent extension of the Juarez free trade zone will not go into effect until next year, Uranga said. The promised rail station, train-to-truck facility and refueling station proposed years ago by Union Pacific Railroad has also yet to materialize, and renovations are needed to the Santa Teresa Airport to accommodate large passenger and cargo jets, such as DC-10 aircraft, to satisfy the needs of logistics companies.

Uranga said the Santa Teresa-San Jeronimo border corridor is ideal for new maquilas and other enterprises because of its close proximity to the Santa Teresa Port of Entry, which would allow American investors, business and operations managers to cross into Mexico without fear of encountering the violence that has so badly plagued Ciudad Juarez.

“Picture an operation along the fence of the U.S. line, with secure corridors going through both U.S. and Mexican customs, where goods are coming through with dedicated lanes for transportation,” he said “This is why the importance of the (Foxconn) project is being talked about. We’re thinking about a new railway, a new (Santa Teresa Airport) runway and the expansion of the (Santa Teresa) crossing.”

In August, Gov.Bill Richardson announced that the New Mexico Border Authority signed a $1.23 million grant agreement with the Economic Development Administration, which will be utilized to evaluate the expansion of commercial rail services along the U.S.-Mexico border. The agreement has the full support of Richardson and U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman.

“Expanding commercial rail service along the border is fundamental to increasing trade between the United States and Mexico and will be a huge boost to the economy of southern New Mexico,” Richardson said. “I am pleased that this grant will allow us to continue our work on this important project.”

Zoe Richmond, director of public affairs for Union Pacific, said the railway extension project proposed by UP isn’t yet off the table, but she didn’t give a timetable for future investment in the area.  “We stalled the project,” she said. “We did that obviously because of the economy. We are not able at this time to advance as we originally thought.”

The proposed $150 million Santa Teresa UP transfer station would clear congestion on the El Paso and Juarez railway, Uranga said. The transfer station would create more than 280 jobs and be able to process up to 100,000 containers per year.

Plans for improvements to the Santa Teresa Airport, however, are materializing. In September, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced that Santa Teresa will receive $2.2 million in funding for runway extensions.

“We’re taking baby steps to neutralize any major disadvantages we may have,” said Jerry Pacheco, director of the International Business Accelerator, a New Mexico nonprofit that specializes in cross-border economic development. Uranga said without state and federal financial support, infrastructure improvements and cross-border communication and cooperation, development on the Santa Teresa corridor will continue to lag.

“If you build it, they will come,” Uranga said. “If these things are in place, by having these projects complete and expanding the (Santa Teresa) airport, when you can have a container yard on the Mexican side, you can reroute the train lines from the center of Juarez to Santa Teresa.”

Ultimately, if the border transportation and logistics corridor that Uranga envisions becomes reality, he sees the “inefficient” trucking dominated transportation system currently in place across the border as a thing of the past. No longer will hundreds of trailers from the west and inner-city of Juarez logjam El Paso’s three border crossings every day, but instead a sophisticated truck-to-train system, with the help of logistics and transportation companies on each side of the border, will replace the current system, with many companies using the Santa Teresa Port of Entry.

“This is great potential that we’re sitting on,” Uranga said. “We bought into the idea, my chairman trusted me in setting up the (Foxconn) facility here, and once the free trade zone is approved in the first quarter of next year, we’ll start moving.

“But we need private sector people to continue to work with us and set up next to us. We need the U.S. side, the Mexico side, the New Mexico side and the Juarez and El Paso side working together on this. If we continue competing and fighting among each other, it won’t work. We need to maximize our potential.”

At Foxconn, Uranga is responsible for government relations at all levels as well as regulations, incentives, tax and duties, legal customers, immigration and land and construction issues in Latin America. He serves on the Board of Directors of Superior Industries International Inc., one of the largest wheel-makers in the world. From 1998 to 2004, he served as secretary of industrial development for the State of Chihuahua.

The MVEDA Board of Directors and Staff want to give special thanks to our key note speakers:

• Francisco Urango, Corporate Vice President and Chief Business Operations Officer for Latin America,for Foxconn.   Foxconn is the largest contract manufacturing company in the world with a significant manufacturing presence in San Jeronimo, next to the Santa Teresa Port of Entry,

• Carissa Bryce Christensen, founder and Managing Partner of The Tauri Group, an analytic and engineering firm based in Alexandria, VA, which provides expertise on the economic, market, technology and policy issues associated with commercial spaceflight, and

• Dr. Lowell Catlett, Regent’s Professor/Dean and Chief Administrative Officer at NMSU’s College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences.  Dr. Catlett is also a national speaker and futurist on trends associated with technologies and their implications on the way we live and work.

Special thanks also go out to our expert panelists that included:

• Juan Massey, Director of Regulatory Affairs at Verde Realty,

• Jerry Pacheco, Executive Director of the International Business Accelerator,

• Andrew Moralez, Executive Director of the New Mexico Border Authority,

• Zoe Gisela Richmond, Director of Public Affairs for Union Pacific,

• Robert X. Martinez, VP of Construction Management for Gerald Martin,

• Keith Beck, VP and General Manager of the Jacob’s Technology Test and Evaluation Center,

• Wayne Savage, Program Manager of Progressive Construction Management, and

• Mark Lautman, Principal of Lautman Economic Architecture Partners, LLC.

For those of you who could not attend, we will be placing parts of the presentations on our website in the coming weeks.

Q1 2010-’11 Activity

MVEDA entered the 2010-’11 Fiscal Year with twelve, high-priority projects, consisting of approximately 1,200 jobs with a realistic chance of closing in the current fiscal year.   Approximately 1/3 of those jobs (as illustrated in the blue on the chart below), consisting of primarily manufacturing and renewable energy companies, show a very strong chance of closing.  What this means to MVEDA’s internal operations is that we have turned much of our attention this past quarter towards the project management needs of our clients.

Additionally, MVEDA continues its aggressive marketing campaign and year to date we have developed 22 new leads consisting of approximately 925 employees and 785,000sf of required space.   In comparison to last year, total new leads are slightly down and we see a shift in industry specific leads especially within food processing which currently represents 25% of all our new 2010-’11 leads as compared to only 3% of total leads for the same period last fiscal year.

Manufacturing/logistics and aerospace also showed some slight growth as a percentage of total leads while renewable energy leads dropped to 21% of total leads YTD 2010-’11 compared with 32% for the same period last fiscal year.  Additionally, whereas a large portion of our renewable energy leads last year were involved in manufacturing, we see a much larger portion of this year’s renewable energy leads involved in renewable energy generation.

With respect to employment trends in the region versus the rest of the United States, the Las Cruces market has fared very well.  In a September 2010 report by Garner Economics LLC, which measured job growth trends amongst 158 U.S. metros, Las Cruces was recognized along with 15 other metros as setting new record employment numbers.  Garner Economics’ report quoted:

“The July 2010 employment numbers also show that sixteen metros have set new records; surpassing July peak employment totals from the previous five years (see map and table).”

As illustrated in the map and table provided as part of the Garner Economics report, Las Cruces NM was ranked 8th amongst these 16 cities in terms of the percentage increase in jobs with over 1,900 new jobs added over July 2009.

In the upcoming months, MVEDA will continue to be active in several events.   Later in October, MVEDA is sponsor to ISPCS as well as to the VC Speed Dating Event put on by the Arrowhead Center.   We will also be attending the BizTech 2010 Expo in El Paso.

Finally, if you were not already aware, the MVEDA staff is now settled into our new offices in the First Community Bank Building in downtown Las Cruces.  Our formal address is: 1st Community Bank Tower, 277 E. Amador, Suite 304, Las Cruces, NM  88001.  We hope you can all stop by and visit us in the very near future.

Francisco Uranga

The morning will begin with a presentation by Francisco Uranga, Corporate Vice President for Latin America Operations at Taiwan-based Foxconn, the largest electronic manufacturing services company in the world. He is responsible for government relations, regulations, incentives, tax and duties, legal, customs, immigration, and land and construction issues. From 1998 to 2004, he served as Secretary of Industrial Development for the state government of Chihuahua, Mexico. Mr. Uranga will discuss the impact of Mexico’s largest maquila on cross-border trade through the Santa Teresa Port of Entry (POE). His presentation will be followed by a panel of regional experts in cross-border trade.

Carissa Christensen

Following the Santa Teresa POE discussion, Carissa Christensen, Founder and Managing Partner of The Tauri Group, will discuss the impact of the commercialization of spaceflight activities. The Tauri Group is a 150-person analytic and engineering consulting firm based in Alexandria, Virginia.  She is an expert on the economic, market, technology, and policy issues associated with commercial space.  Ms. Christensen has led the industry in innovative analysis of demand for space services and technology planning and has published extensively.  Her presentation will be followed by a panel who will discuss the long-term economic impacts of Spaceport America.

Dr. Lowell Catlett

Tying it all together will be Dr. Lowell Catlett, nationally known economist, futurist and keynote speaker. Dr. Catlett is a Regent’s Professor/Dean and Chief Administrative Officer at New Mexico State University’s College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. An exciting futurist, his knowledge of technologies and their implications on the way we will live and work is addressed in his varied and upbeat presentations. Dr. Catlett works on behalf of corporate and association audiences internationally, presenting his take on trends in healthcare, agriculture, the environment, education and more.

The event is sponsored by Gerald Martin Construction and Verde Corporate Realty Services.

Due to space constraints, pre-registration is required. The last day to register is Tuesday, October 5^th. Click on the “Registration” button below and return the attached registration form along with your payment of $25.00 per person as noted on the form.

The article mentions Foxconn, Spaceport America, Virgin Galactic, and New Mexico State University. The article and the other counties mentioned are available online by clicking the CNNMoney.com link above.

On the following day, attendees heard from experts on a variety of issues ranging from border security to rail shipping to financing issues. There were also presentations regarding Foxconn’s San Jeronimo project, Union Pacific’s Santa Teresa rail relocation project, and the Punta Colonet port project.

The annual event is organized by the International Business Accelerator (IBA). Additional event hosts for 2009 included the New Mexico Economic Development Department Office of Mexican Affairs, The North American Institute (NAMI), the Mesilla Valley Economic Development Alliance, Gobierno Municipal De Juarez, Western New Mexico University and the New Mexico Small Business Development Center (NMSBDC).

See related articles from the Las Cruces Sun-News, El Paso Times, New Mexico Business Journal .

MVEDA  President and CEO Davin Lopez said the facility will be helping to handle logistic needs for Foxconn, a Taiwan-based electronics company that is building a factory just across the border from Santa Teresa in San Jeronimo, Mexico. “It is one of our first opportunistic wins (as a result of Foxconn),” Lopez said of the addition of the Expeditors International facility.

The New Mexico Economic Development Department, along with its Office of Mexican Affairs, MVEDA and the New Mexico Partnership, worked closely with Expeditors executives during the past eight months to facilitate the project.

The Foxconn plant, which when completed will be the largest maquila in Mexico, was the subject of a November, 2008 article in Site Selection Magazine, linked from MVEDA’s “News and Announcements” page.