Nuevo León, Coahuila, and Querétaro are the states that have received the most investment announcements in 2024.
Amazon, Mexico Pacific, and Woodside Energy join Constellation Brands, Royal Caribbean, and Foxconn—which will manufacture chips for Nvidia—in investing in Mexico in 2025. These investment announcements have come amid political uncertainty due to the reform of the Judiciary and three weeks before the U.S. presidential elections, where both candidates have shown their intention to renegotiate the USMCA.
The arrival of investments in the country has been uneven. Since 2023, the Ministry of Economy has reported 535 announcements, with 70% concentrated in eight states. Meanwhile, 11 states have barely accumulated 18 announcements.
Nuevo León, Coahuila, and Querétaro are the states with the most announcements. On the opposite end, Baja California Sur, Morelos, and Guerrero have the fewest, according to the Ministry of Economy. Among the new investments this year, the world’s largest plant for manufacturing artificial intelligence processors for Nvidia in Jalisco and Amazon’s new infrastructure center in Querétaro stand out.
Of the 45 companies that have announced their investments in 2024, 30 already operate in Mexico, and 15 are set to establish themselves in 2025, according to Marcelo Ebrard, Secretary of Economy. 90% of foreign direct investment is concentrated in 10 countries, while the remaining 10% comes from 64 countries.
**Representing 90% of the Total According to Ministry of Economy
Spain, which was the second-largest foreign investor in the country in 2023, has dropped out of the top 10 this year, recording a negative balance of $219.8 million in the first half of the year. Iberdrola, the Spanish company that invested the most in Mexico, sold 13 plants to the Mexican government this year.
Since 2008, foreign direct investment has shown an upward trend. Despite moments of uncertainty due to the revocation of permits in the previous administration, such as the case of Constellation Brands brewery in 2020 and the constant rhetoric of Andrés Manuel López Obrador against businessmen.
The last decline was in 2020, and since then, it has not stopped growing. Mexico has benefited from the nearshoring of global companies relocating their plants and operations to reduce dependence on Asian countries and amid trade tensions between China and the United States. In the first half of the year, 86% of the flows received in all of 2023 were accumulated, so the Ministry of Economy expects investments to close around $38.441 billion, a historic high.
The announcements were made at the first event of the new government with U.S. businessmen 15 days after the president took office. Sheinbaum has assured that the relationship with the United States and businessmen is a priority for her government.
The new investments come amid doubts about the U.S. presidential elections. Neither candidate favors the free trade agreement with Mexico. Democrat Kamala Harris has assured in her campaign that she will prevent the loss of American jobs due to nearshoring and recalled that she voted against the agreement in 2020. “I knew it wasn’t enough to protect our country and its workers,” she said last week. Her opponent, Donald Trump, has announced that he will seek to bring back to the United States the jobs lost due to trade agreements, proposing aggressive tariffs. He assured that he will seek a much better agreement than the one reached in 2018 and wants to take advantage of the automotive industry.
Source: El Pais
