Trade between Portugal and Mexico on the way to 1 billion euros

The relations between Portugal and Mexico are more cohesive than ever. Trade in goods and services between the two countries reached 568.3 million euros in 2018 – almost doubling in the last four years. With an annual growth rate stabilized at around 13%-14%, the 1 billion euro mark is already on the horizon to be exceeded in less than five years.

With these figures, it is not strange that Mexico is consolidating itself as the second main market in Latin America for Portuguese exports, only surpassed by Brazil, which follows – and will follow – with some distance in the first place. The growing investment of Portuguese companies in Mexico, as well as the sustained increase in trade between the two countries, show the immense potential that Mexico’s development projects offer in the areas of infrastructure, the industry of moulds and tool machines for the ‘automotive cluster’ and other technology-based projects.

The Manuel Champalimaud group is the leader in Mexico in the manufacture of high precision technical moulds and plastic injection parts. Mota Engil has been increasing its investments in Mexico and recently won another construction and exploration concession project for a new motorway. EDP Renováveis has already invested more than 400 million in a clean and renewable energy project. These are just a few examples, but there is room in the Mexican market for much more to be done.

At the end of last year, the Mexican government presented its National Private Sector Infrastructure Investment Programme: around 44 billion euros will be invested in roads and transport, telecommunications and tourism in the period 2020-2024. The Program will be announced on February 17th by the Luso-Mexican Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in collaboration with the Mexican Embassy in Portugal.

The proliferation of Portuguese companies in Mexico, not only in terms of trade but also in investment, allows them to enter an economy of nearly 130 million inhabitants, which is the 13th largest in the world by nominal GDP. In addition, Mexico’s trade relations with other Latin America markets – through the Pacific Alliance Trade Treaty, and with Canada and the US through USCMA – which replaces NAFTA – will also help boost the Mexican economy as a platform for other international business.

The growing interest in common business between Portugal and Mexico is, therefore, representative of the potential that both markets have to gain from a closer relationship between companies from both countries in increasingly broad areas.

In view of this, the Luso-Mexican Chamber of Commerce and Industry will soon launch a Collective Action Incentive System (SIAC) that intends to divulge in the Mexican market sectors of the Portuguese industry in the area of moulds and tool machines. The objective is to divulge the level of our technological development in these sectors in the Mexican market.

It will be an opportunity that – I am sure – many Portuguese companies will not let pass by.