A green code for Mexico: the challenges of the present as the most precious opportunity for the future.

A green code for Mexico: the challenges of the present as the most precious opportunity for the future.

By Jorge Visoso


Shanghai, April 2, 2009.- For the past decades, one of the most important components of the relationship of Mexico with the international economy has been its policy of attracting foreign investment from developed countries.

Foreign investment has been for Mexico what it has been for other developing countries: an opportunity to bridge the technological gap with the developed world as well as a source of employment and economic growth. Even though Mexico has been open to any kind of foreign investment, what Mexico has got in more quantity is not the kind of investment to create the most technologically advanced industries. American automakers came to Mexico when the automotive industry in the world was already mature; aerospace industry has recently come to Mexico, when this is not either a new industry. The same is true in the case of electric appliances, retailing, machinery, etc.

No doubt that foreign investment has had in the development of Mexico a very positive impact. It has created jobs and it has given the country an opportunity to catch with the world and form a skilled work force. However, this pattern of attracting investment in relatively old industries is one of the reasons Mexico has never been technologically ahead. For decades, Mexico enjoyed the boom of the car consumption in the US but precisely for this reason now is suffering the crisis of the automotive industry in the US.

I believe that now Mexico has a historical opportunity to change that pattern and make a virtue of a liability. Now that the world needs, as Thomas Friedman argues, a green code in order to cope with a hot, flat and crowded world, there is a historical opportunity for Mexico to put in place a green code of its own.

Since the United States is for Mexico its main source of foreign investment and its main export market, it will be for Mexico very visionary to take a step ahead of the United States, becoming a new neighbor that supplies no fantasy drugs but cheap green technology products and solutions. If this green Mexican code is pursued as a national goal, before than other competitors such as Central America, China and Canada, this will be for Mexico its most visionary project.

The world is experiencing now in this spring of 2009 a very serious crisis. The threats go beyond the troubles of the economy. In the past, every time societies experienced the turn of centuries, there were always people that feared the end of the world. We are just starting a new millennium but the problems of the world are so complex (especially those related to the environment, the energy crisis and the climate change) that fearing that the world is going to end is just understandable..

The transformations in progress are bound to give birth to a new world, where the cars are not going to be gas powered, where people are not going to work in offices anymore but at home and where newspapers are no longer be printed in paper. A new world is in construction and still for a very long time, the United States, Mexico’s largest partner, is going to be the source and the market for all those transformations.

So, why not envisioning a Mexico that takes the wave of the future and that prepares it self for becoming a leading exporter and supplier of electric cars, electronic paper, new batteries and home-office furniture, just to name few examples? I don’t need to elaborate more on the benefits that this turn will bring to Mexico: better environment, better jobs, value added exports, technology, education and prosperity. I believe this can be a master plan for Mexico.

As I write this lines, Danish (Vestas), German (Solarworld), Japanese (Honda) and Spanish (Gamesa) corporations, just to name only few examples (fortune.com/greenbiz), are lining to invest in the US in order to tap on all the new necessities of the consumers of the future. Why we don’t make Mexico a choice for all those companies? Why don’t we change our focus and instead of stay stuck to the old pattern of attracting gas powered cars or flat screen TVs, we don’t try to attract all the green investment of the future?

If we decide to take that path, it will be essential we reorient our external antennas in the world as well as to reform our foreign policy. It will be crucial also adapting our education system to these expected transformations.

My idea is that we better reinforce our presence in all those regions and international forums where the leaders of green technologies are. If you ask me, I will say that we should send more people to study to Sweden, to Denmark, to Germany; that we should create the best possible conditions for the investment in Mexico of big new green projects, such as turbines, lithium batteries, new materials or for providing new services, such as efficient recycling.

We need also human capital to work and support the new industries. At first glance, it looks like there’s nothing like that in Mexico but that’s not true. For instance, the university I graduated from, UMAM, has recently opened a bachelor in technology and it has two relatively new research institutes: the Center of Research on Energy www.cie.unam.mx and the Center of Research on Environmental Geography www.ciga.unam.mx

Transforming problems into opportunities has always been a key to compete and the most successful countries and organizations are those who have understood this truth. This April 2 2009, the New York Times published a note that exemplifies how China is taking advantage of the present automotive industry crisis to become a leader in the production of electric cars http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/business/global/02electric.html?hp Why don’t Mexico try something similar? Actually, the cooperation with China in these new fields would be a very interesting endeavor of our Mexico’s foreign policy. I would love to see the Ambassador of Mexico, Mr. Jorge Guajardo, get busy trying to make Mexico board the Chinese locomotive instead of only focusing on trying to sell pork meat or tequila to China. On the same toke, it would had been lovely to see last week the President of Mexico, Mr. Felipe Calderon, bring our ambition of having our own green code to Mr. Hillary Clinton instead of only focusing on who is responsible for the recent drug violence.

We can not change history and geography, but now is the moment to be ambitious and visionary enough to take a step ahead of America and shape our future. A Mexico transformed by a new green code is the Mexico of the future that I can't wait to see.