Mexico's aeronautics sector holds bright growth potential for German industry, sections of which are working at "full tilt" in Latin America's second-biggest economy, a leading business association said. Johannes Hauser, managing director of the German-Mexican chamber of commerce (CAMEXA), said German manufacturers saw good prospects in Mexico thanks to its technical advances and because it offered an escape from the strong euro.
He cited feedback from German companies during a recent visit to the central states of Queretaro and Guanajuato, where the likes of truckmaker MAN SE and Europe's biggest carmaker, Volkswagen AG, have operations. "They're working full tilt, at 100 percent capacity, and are wondering how they'll get all the work done," Hauser told Reuters in an interview on Friday.
Volkswagen, which already has a major production site in the city of Puebla, east of Mexico City, said last autumn it is investing $550 million in a new engine plant in Guanajuato. In aeronautics, Mexico offered firms a chance to seek new clients apart from Airbus and EADS, Hauser said.
"They'd like to diversify both in terms of buyer structure, but also their production sites which are today still very much concentrated in Europe and Germany. In Mexico there's a very young and dynamic aeronautics industry," he added. Mexico's economy is enjoying a sweet spot of low inflation and higher growth, catching global investors' attention. German President Christian Wulff is due to visit Mexico in May, and Britain's Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg comes next week. However, international headlines about Mexico often focus on the violence accompanying the conflict between President Felipe Calderon's government and powerful drug cartels, which has claimed more than 36,000 lives in the past four years.