During summer 2023, the Georgetown Americas Institute is hosting three events in the Latin America in the Global Economy program that bring together policymakers and other experts to discuss the growing trend of nearshoring investments in North America, particularly in Mexico. According to the 2023 World Investment Report, greenfield investment project announcements were up 15 percent in 2022, growing in most regions and sectors. Industries struggling with supply chain challenges, including electronics, semiconductors, automotive, and machinery, saw a surge in projects. Mexico has seen a substantial increase in investment inflows in the past two years. In 2022, Mexico received 35 billion U.S. dollars; in the first quarter of 2023, the amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) was 18 billion U.S. dollars. How can nearshoring enhance Mexico’s competitiveness and foster economic growth in North America? What domestic policies Mexico must implement in order to keep the investments going into the country?
These events will respond to these questions by giving participants the opportunity to hear success stories from companies that have implemented nearshoring strategies and learn best practices that local governments are deploying to help companies navigate these associated complexities. The second session will feature Luis de la Calle of consulting firm De la Calle, Madrazo, Mancera, S.C. (CMM) and Luz Maria de la Mora, former undersecretary of foreign trade, who will comment on what Mexico must do to attract more investment and how policy decisions on trade and industrial policy have prompted investors to look for new horizons. The conversation will be moderated by GAI Resident Fellow Antoni Estevadeordal.
Featuring
Luis de la Calle is managing director and founding partner of De la Calle, Madrazo, Mancera, S.C. (CMM), a consulting firm specialized in economics, regulatory processes, and matters related to international trade. He previously served as undersecretary of international business negotiations at the Ministry of Economy in Mexico. During his administration he headed Mexico’s negotiations for bilateral trade agreements and regional multilateral negotiations in the World Trade Organization. Luis de la Calle also served as minister of trade issues at the Mexican Embassy in Washington, DC, a position from which he participated actively in the design, promotion, and implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He also worked at the World Bank as a country economist for the Czech and Slovak Republics, Poland, and the former Zaire.
Luz María de la Mora Sánchez served as vice minister of foreign trade in the Ministry of Economy of Mexico from December 2018 to October 2022. Before that she served various positions in the Mexican government, including assistant undersecretary for economic relations and international cooperation in Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and assistant undersecretary for International Trade Negotiations in Mexico’s Ministry of Economy. She has led the offices of Mexico’s economy ministry before the European Union in Brussels and before ALADI in Montevideo. She has served as economic counselor at the Embassy of Mexico in Washington, DC and was part of the NAFTA negotiating team. She has been a NAFTA Chapter 19 panelist and consultant with the advisory committee of the Latin America Division of the World Bank. In the academic field, she has been a visiting researcher at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC and at the Center for US-Mexico Studies of the University of California at San Diego. She is the author of the book Apertura con Reciprocidad, as well as a number of articles on trade policy. She has been a champion of inclusion and has promoted women entrepreneurship through mentorship and capacity building programs, both through the WEConnect International program in Mexico (2012-2018) and the Vital Voices Global Partnership network since 2009. She is currently a member of the International Women´s Forum. She is a board member of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Latin America Center, and holds a PhD in political science from Yale.
Antoni Estevadeordal is a resident fellow and leads the Latin America in the Global Economy project at the Georgetown Americas Institute. He has held several senior executive positions at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in a career of more than 25 years in Washington, DC. Most recently he was IDB representative in Europe, based in Brussels, where he led IDB’s relationship and resource mobilization with all European stakeholders and European institutions. Previously, he headed the IDB Migration Initiative, responsible for implementing innovative blended-finance projects to respond to the migration crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean. For more than a decade he was manager of the IDB Integration and Trade Sector, supervising a lending operational portfolio and technical assistance in more than 20 countries. He also coordinated IDB’s trade policy and integration research agenda, as well as several public-private strategic initiatives and inter-institutional partnerships. He has expertise in international development and development finance, regional integration and international cooperation, trade policy and investment regimes, migration policy, and regional and global public goods. Estevadeordal has published widely in major journals and authored several books. He has been a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings Institution and member of the WEF Global Council on the Future of Logistics. He holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in economics from Harvard University and a B.A. in economics from the University of Barcelona.