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Saturday, July 19, 2008

Mega-Maquila on N.M. Border

By Rene Romo
Journal Staff Writer
       LAS CRUCES — Groundbreaking for a giant Taiwanese electronics manufacturing plant just south of the Mexican border could finally be the major catalyst needed for economic growth around the Santa Teresa port of entry in southern New Mexico.
    The Taiwanese plant is billed as the largest maquiladora, or assembly plant, in Mexico.
    Foxconn, the trade name for Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision Industry, this week began construction in San Jeronimo on the first phase of a sprawling complex that, when completed in three to four years, will employ 20,000 workers.
    Foxconn is an electronics manufacturing giant with global reach that makes products for Apple, Nokia, Dell and Sony, including iPods, video games and more cell phones than any other firm in the world.
    Its project on a 440-acre site abutting the New Mexico border southwest of the Santa Teresa port of entry marks the first industrial development in the San Jeronimo area, much of which is owned by Mexican businessman Eloy Vallina.
    The project's first phase, a 1.3 million-square-foot facility costing $185 million, is scheduled to open by next March and employ 9,300 workers making computers, laptops and other electronic equipment for a variety of companies.
    When complete, the Foxconn complex will house more than 3 million square feet of industrial space, said Francisco Uranga, Foxconn's corporate vice president for Latin America and formerly the Chihuahua state secretary for industrial development.
    Currently, the largest maquiladora is the 1.8 million-square-foot Electrolux facility in Ciudad Juárez, where about 3,200 workers are employed, said Manuel Ochoa, vice president for binational development for the El Paso Regional Economic Development Corp.
    "It's a big, big investment, a mega-industrial park, and they will be the first one located on the west side'' of Ciudad Juárez, Ochoa said.
    Jerry Pacheco, executive director of the Santa Teresa-based International Business Accelerator, a contractor for the state's Economic Development Department, said Foxconn's plant will be as important a foundation to the southern Doña Ana County area's growth as establishment of the port of entry itself.
    "That (Foxconn plant) is going to spur housing on this side (of the border), retail, it will spur truck crossings, and it will give us the ability to attract suppliers to New Mexico,'' Pacheco said Thursday. "It's potentially the biggest thing that's ever happened to Santa Teresa.''
    Jaime Campos, executive director of the New Mexico Border Authority, called the Foxconn complex a one-of-a-kind "mega-maquila project for Mexico.''
    Juárez maquiladoras as a group employ about 240,000 workers, the most of any region in Mexico.
    New Mexico authorities have long expected, and hoped, that manufacturers would put down roots in the undeveloped San Jeronimo area.
    Shipping assembled products from San Jeronimo would allow manufactures to take advantage of the short wait times at the Santa Teresa port of entry, which links to Interstate 10 via a four-lane highway.
    In that scenario, maquiladoras south of Santa Teresa would in turn attract suppliers to set up shop in industrial parks in southern Doña Ana County, generating jobs and spurring commercial and residential development.
    "We were expecting that for a long time,'' Campos said, "but we never expected it on the magnitude that (Foxconn) is. We were expecting a home run, but it's a grand slam.''
    Gov. Bill Richardson called the Foxconn project the "kind of economic development that is going to bring the New Mexico-Mexico border to the forefront of international trade and development."
    The presence of the mammoth Foxconn complex within a stone's throw of the port of entry will finally give New Mexico a crucial geographic advantage over El Paso in recruiting maquiladora suppliers to Santa Teresa, Pacheco said.
    "Geography has always been our Achilles' heel,'' Pacheco said. "All of this takes us into a brand-new phase that we've waited for for 10 years in Santa Teresa.''