Direct maritime route between Mexico and China opened

A new direct maritime trade route between Mexico and China has been inaugurated. The new maritime transport route will reduce navigation time by up to ten days.

The route was inaugurated with the departure of a merchant ship that will make the journey in 22 days, ten days less than the routes used previously. Among the merchandise that will transit this new route are grains, chemical and mineral products, automobile parts and machinery, it was indicated.

“In this way, the transportation needs of companies in northeast China that want to penetrate emerging markets in Latin America will be effectively covered,” he added.

Mexico is China’s second largest trading partner in Latin America. According to customs data, bilateral trade reached a volume of 86 billion dollars in 2022, a figure that represents an increase of 13.3% compared to the previous year.

The same company that inaugurated this new trade route plans to charter eight cargo ships with a capacity of 6,000 to 8,000 twenty-foot containers (TEU) to provide direct weekly service to Mexican ports such as Ensenada, Manzanillo and Lázaro Cárdenas, all on the Pacific coast of the North American country.

Mexico is already thinking about revising the T-MEC

With a view to revising the Mexico, United States and Canada Treaty (T-MEC) in 2026, the current head of the Ministry of Economy, Raquel Buenrostro, and her successor, Marcelo Ebrard, indicated that work is already underway on revising the treaty and that the country plans to negotiate from a position of strength and fortitude.

Both pointed out that the T-MEC has represented a “success” for Mexico by increasing investment and better salaries for Mexicans.

Buenrostro and Ebrard accompanied the current president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and the future president, Claudia Sheinbaum, on a tour in San Luis Potosí, with the theme ‘Economic Balance, Industrial Development and T-MEC’.

“It is important to say that by 2026, we have in mind a review of the T-MEC that will tell us what the relationship with our friends from North America (the United States and Canada) will be like in the next 16 years,” Buenrostro said in his speech.

According to the Ministry of Economy, Foreign Direct Investment in Mexico reached a record of more than 36 billion dollars in 2023, with 38% coming from the United States and, so far this year, they amount to 20 billion dollars, while 5 out of 10 pesos invested come from companies that have their capital of origin in North America.

In his turn, Ebrard said that the negotiation has been a success “because there is more investment, more employment and better salaries in Mexico.”

“Mexico has the location, the demographics, the infrastructure, the size and is the main partner and exporter to the United States of America, which remains the largest economy in the world (…) and Mexico surpasses China as an exporter to the United States,” he explained.

The former foreign minister of Mexico (2018-2023), who will be in charge of the Ministry of Economy in the Sheinbaum Government, which starts on October 1, said that Mexico will negotiate “whatever needs to be negotiated and promoted” and will do so “from a position of strength, of fortitude, not of weakness, Mexico will bring investments with a solid Government.”

In her speech, Sheinbaum highlighted that “for the first time, conditions of equality are being negotiated, not of subordination with the United States because we are equal, we are a sovereign country, an autonomous country and we negotiate under equal circumstances.”

The future president said that her government (2024-2030) will also have as a guideline “to defend, as López Obrador has done, our countrymen who live in the United States, who in addition to helping us sustain the Mexican economy are fundamental to the United States economy.”

Source: infobae