"Mexico doesn’t look so bad"; businessmen trust in the country’s potential

International organizations such as the Bank of Mexico (Banxico) estimate that Mexico will grow just 1.5% this year, a figure below the 3% that was recorded in 2022.

By 2025, the outlook is for growth above 1%.

Diez Barroso, who is also a businesswoman and director of different private companies – including Santander – said that Mexico will have investments as long as there is collaboration between the private initiative and the public sector.

For the businesswoman, investments will come as long as there is investment in infrastructure, energy, security and water. Furthermore, he considered that Mexico’s growth prospects look more pessimistic from within than from outside.

“There is a lot of hunger to invest (in Mexico). Not necessarily in nearshoring because they are large companies that come to set up their large plants, such as Amazon Web Services, but there are medium-sized companies that believe that Mexico is very attractive,” he said.

Javier Sosa, president of PPG Comex, agreed that there must be collaboration between the private initiative and the government to build investment and growth in Mexico.

And it’s not just about infrastructure: one of the great pending issues in the country is to improve education so that companies that come to the country find trained personnel that can trigger their growth and, in turn, the economy.

Francisco Lira, general director of Actinver, highlighted the great opportunity that a great investment opportunity has.

Investment in technology and sustainability

Manuel Chinchilla, CEO of Philip Morris in Mexico, said that companies have to innovate every day to meet the demands and needs of societies.

But innovation has to be shared between private initiative and governments so that it impacts people.

He gave as an example what is done in his company, in which they stopped making cigarettes and invested resources to meet the new demands of consumers.

“We have decided to stop selling cigarettes; that requires an investment in technology and development; so this brings a revolution,” said Chinchilla.