438 million dollar in foreign investments will arrive in Juarez

A series of foreign investments which in total amount 438 million dollars will come to Chihuahua, mainly to Ciudad Juarez in 2019, according to figures from the General Direction of Foreign Investment, from the Ministry of the economy.

Fabian Santana, director of Chihuahua Industrial Developer from the Ministry of Innovation and Economic Development, explained that this capital is distributed in 14 operations, of which 12 are new and 2 are organic growths from already established companies of the energy and automotive sectors.

Also, within this new investments are those of auto-parts, electronics, machining, and logistics.

“In total, we consider these investments will generate more than 4 thousand jobs in Chihuahua and will occupy 4 million square feet in industrial buildings,” he added.

For the Director of Chihuahua Industrial Developer this number of investments broke a record, since from October 2016 to date more than 70 investments of this type have been generated, 34 were fulfilled in 2018.

“With these numbers from the first quarter, we have a record year in Chihuahua, mainly in Ciudad Juarez, despite markets’ volatility,” he noted.

With this number of investments, Chihuahua continues among the first five states nationally receiving the highest amount of foreign investment quarter after quarter.  “We hope this trend keeps raising,” he said.

For Fabian Santana, these numbers are positive, compared with the four maquilas that have left Ciudad Juarez during the last quarter of 2018.  “In total, this year we will have almost 50 new operations,” he underlined.

Finally, Santana underlined that the new operations are in the advanced manufacturing sector, which will generate better wages for workers who, also will have a more technical integration with suppliers.

“Meanwhile, the companies that left the State are less than 1 % and are very manual companies that close their operations to settle in lower cost places, in Pacific Asia or Central America.  Fortunately, all investments we are capturing are not only substituting these jobs, but absorbing a higher amount and they are doing it in better conditions,” he ended.