Posts Tagged ‘International Business Accelerator’

Release courtesy of the International Business Accelerator

Santa Teresa, New Mexico – JBC International, LLC, a regional plastics recycling company, has established operations in Chaparral, New Mexico. This five-year-old company currently has recycling operations in Juarez, Mexico. Its new plant in Chaparral will collect plastic products and recycle them into usable production inputs for industrial applications. The company plans to hire approximately 12 employees for the Chaparral plant.

According to JBC International CEO Carlos Gonzalez, “Our new Chaparral location is conveniently located next to the industrial bases in El Paso, Juarez, and southern New Mexico. We were impressed with all of the support we received from the New Mexico Economic Development Partnership, the Otero County Economic Development Council, and the Western New Mexico Small Business Development Center. These entities were all extremely helpful in providing business environment, workforce, and economic development incentive information.”

The company has purchased the land and constructed a building for its operations in the Otero County side of Chaparral. It expects to begin operations by early 2011.

JBC International is a plastics recycling company that recycles over 12,000 lbs of plastic daily. Other scrap materials the company recycles include pallet, cardboard, and metal. The company purchases the material, processes it for industrial applications, and sells it to buyers in the region

Article courtesy of the Las Cruces Bulletin

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.

MVEDA would like thank everyone who was able to attend Friday’s Regional Economic Development Forum, titled “A Tale of Two Ports.”  Those who attended were able to hear directly from leading experts on both the opportunities and challenges we face in Southern New Mexico in growing our region’s two commercial ports of entry, both the Santa Teresa Port as well as Spaceport America.

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.

Article courtesy of the International Business Accelerator

The El Paso Community College’s Contract Opportunities Center and the El Paso Small Business Consortium are proud to announce the 7th Annual Procurement and Contracting Symposium to be held on April 27, 2010 at the El Paso Community College’s Administrative Services Center, 9050 Viscount, El Paso, Texas. This event has historically been supported by agencies of federal, state and local governments and their Prime Contractors, making this Symposium a premier event in the West Texas and Southern New Mexico region.

Suppliers of goods and services are ready to stand up with agencies of federal, state and local governments as they strive to meet the challenges of supporting the war fighter. Our goal is very simple- to provide a venue and an opportunity for purchasers, contractors and suppliers to come together and “Reach out” to one another.

In planning this event the objectives are:

• To provide a venue where federal, state and local governmental agencies and their Prime Contractors have the opportunity to extend their outreach into a region rich with qualified vendors willing to help them meet their acquisition goals;
• To provide an opportunity for regional suppliers and service providers to begin developing relationships with Installation and agency contracting representatives;
• To provide training opportunities for vendors currently engaged in government contracting and to provide information to potential contractors and the local business community.

There are several ways that you can participate. Be a Sponsor, be a presenter, a member of a panel, participate in one-on-one sessions with interested vendors (Government agencies and Prime Contractors only), have a booth in the exhibit area, network or conduct a workshop.

For more information call (915) 831-7749.

Article Courtesy of the International Business Accelerator

On November 11 through 13, 2009, the International Business Accelerator (IBA) and the Office of Mexican Affairs & Trade (OMA) organized an outbound trade mission to Juarez, Mexico. The purpose of the trade mission was to promote New Mexico exports by introducing qualified industrial suppliers to industrial buyers from the maquiladora industry, located in Juarez.

The IBA, OMA, the City of Juarez Economic Development Association, and the State of Chihuahua Industrial Development Department worked together to match the participating New Mexican suppliers’ outputs with the demand interests of the participating maquiladora purchasing managers.

The New Mexico companies that participated in this event included:

• Omega Trucking
• Bralco Metals
• Sun Automation
• Monarch Litho
• Georgia Pacific
• Southwest Dowel & Wood Products, LLC
• Albuquerque Printing

These companies had the opportunity to meet with several maquiladora buyers during a series of pre-qualified interviews arranged by the organizers. Each interview had duration of up to thirty minutes. The companies that participated from the Juarez maquiladora purchasing industrial sector included: Crayola, Bosch, ADC, Delphi, Tyco, Strattec- Security, Larco, Matrix Wire, Bell Manufacturing, Radial, Toro, Labinal, Tatung, Lexmark, Del Real, Cardinal Health, Covidien, and Inventec.

The New Mexico suppliers are currently working on production quotes and are conducting follow-up with these companies.