In an isolated, anecdotal way, or through international news or investment announcements by Chinese companies, we learn that that country is very active in investing in Mexico.
However, in the official information of the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) by the Ministry of Economy, it would seem that China’s investment activity in Mexico is not significant. For example, in its report from January 2006 to June 2023, China appears with an accumulated of 2,478 million dollars.
If we go to the reports that come out of China through redalc-China, the companies of that country report having invested in Mexico from 2006 to 2022 13,400 million dollars. Only in 2016 an investment of 5 billion is reported through Hutchinson Ports in a co-investment with Corporativo UNNE for a logistics terminal that was built in Hidalgo.
The data from the Ministry of Economy contain a footnote indicating that the reported figures of the FDI do not contain those that for some reason choose to be confidential investments. If this is the case, Chinese investment in Mexico does not appear in the official figures, that is, FDI in Mexico is underreported only by that concept that, according to redalc, has consistently maintained an average of 1,700 million annual investment in Mexico since 2014, just when direct exports from China to the United States stalled.
It is clear, then, that China’s nearshoring in Mexico started 10 years ago. The total accumulated amount of Foreign Direct Investment from that country to Mexico is in the top 10 countries of origin and not in the last ones as the official figures would seem to indicate.
Although neither the figures (13,400 million dollars) show significant amounts compared to the United States, our main investor (233 billion), or Spain, our second largest investor (57 billion), as the conditions of nearshoring in Mexico improve and / or trade negotiations between the United States and China become difficult, we would expect China’s Foreign Direct Investment to Mexico to increase even more.
Source: Milenio
