Taiwanese autoparts maker to get $3 million in state funding for Santa Teresa expansion

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced $3 million in state support early Wednesday morning for Hota Industrial Manufacturing, a Taiwanese autoparts maker that plans to invest $99 million in a new factory in Santa Teresa.

The governor and Hota executives discussed the agreement during a 1:30 a.m. press conference — actually 3:30 p.m. Wednesday in Taiwan — where Lujan Grisham led a delegation this week to explore trade and investment issues with Taiwanese companies and government officials.

Hota initially announced its intent in July to potentially invest $72 million in the Santa Teresa industrial zone along the Mexican border, but the state Economic Development Department still was reviewing possible incentives at that time to assist the company in building out its operations in New Mexico. Now, with the EDD agreement to award $3 million in Local Economic Development Act, or LEDA, funding to the company, Hota announced updated plans to actually pump $99 million into a new facility on a 30-acre plot in Westpark, one of the four industrial parks that make up the border business zone just north of the Santa Teresa Port of Entry.

Hota, which will begin construction next year, expects to hire 350 people when the plant comes online, with future expansions possible over the next decade.

“This announcement sits at the nexus of so many of this administration’s priorities, including bolstering foreign trade and securing a cleaner automotive industry,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “I’m incredibly honored that Hota has selected New Mexico as a second home.”

The company makes automotive gears for North American and European firms, including the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla. It has global operations in Taiwan, Japan, China and Mexico, as well as California, Michigan and South Carolina.

“They employ more than 4,000 people worldwide, and we’ll now become part of its U.S. footprint,” Lujan Grisham told the Journal in an online interview from Taipei City.

Hota Chairman David Shen said New Mexico’s robust support helped clinch the company’s investment plans in Santa Teresa.

“The fast responsiveness and support from the state officials have enhanced our decision and confidence to go to New Mexico,” Shen said in a statement. “We believe that the state government will offer the assistance and incentives needed for us to run our business there.”

Apart from LEDA funding, Hota also may qualify for the state’s high-wage jobs tax credit, the manufacturers investment tax credit and assistance through New Mexico’s Job Training Incentive Program.

Those incentives helped recruit many companies in recent years to the Santa Teresa industrial zone, which has become a huge magnet for manufacturers that supply raw materials and parts to factories in Mexico, and that provide warehousing and other services for exporters and importers along the border. That includes three other Taiwanese companies that now operate there: composite parts maker Xxentria Technology Materials, bar code and label producer Cymmetrik, and Admiral Cable, which makes wires, electrical strips and computer parts.

Lujan Grisham’s trip to Taiwan reflects intense efforts in recent years to recruit Taiwanese companies to New Mexico. The state opened a foreign trade office in Taipei in 2019, and it signed a memorandum of understanding in 2021 with Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs to promote closer trade relations.

The governor and other state officials participated on Tuesday in this year’s U.S. Business Day investment forum at the Taipei International Convention Center, an annual event that brings public officials, business executives and companies from both countries together to explore trade relations and investment. She also met with Taiwan President Thai Ing-wen and other Taiwanese officials on Wednesday.

Some 200 Taiwanese businesses participated in this year’s Business Day, allowing Lujan Grisham and the state delegation to meet one-on-one with many top executives.

“Being directly in front of all these companies – their CEO’s – for Business Day is critical to recruitment efforts,” Lujan Grisham told the Journal. “Recruitment happens because of personal relationships, making new contacts, sharing information and discussing prospects that make sense for them to relocate or expand operations in our backyard … It’s about establishing who we are and communicating about potential deals in person.”

Those efforts are boosted by today’s emphasis on “re-shoring” companies from overseas back to the U.S., or “near-shoring” them to Mexico and other neighboring countries, given the severe supply-chain shortages experienced during and after the global pandemic.

For Hota, local proximity is key to company operations because about 70% of its global markets are in the Americas. It picked Santa Teresa for its next manufacturing site based on comparative analysis of advantages and disadvantages among U.S. border states.

“(Santa Teresa’s) location makes it a one-day trucking distance to many of our main customers,” Chairman Shen said. “Transportation infrastructure is in place to support the logistics of our goods and services.”

Utility supply is also stable and relatively inexpensive, labor costs are currently the lowest among neighboring states, and New Mexico has no major natural disasters that often disrupt operations in other places, Shen added.

Those advantages – combined with continuous, robust infrastructure development in the industrial parks – is attracting many companies from Taiwan and other Asian countries, said Jerry Pacheco, director of the International Business Accelerator, which works to recruit trade-related companies to the border region.

“We have a vibrant industrial base at the border that’s drawing a lot of attention,” Pacheco told the Journal. “Santa Teresa and New Mexico’s border region in general are becoming kind of a poster child for re-shoring.”