The strategic sourcing of manufacturing operations around the world is highly dependent on effective industrial site and city selection processes, and there Mexico has re-emerged as a preferred destination for companies looking to establish or relocate their production facilities.

The country has benefited from the nearshoring megatrend and its variants: onshoring and reshoring. Nearshoring, a term commonly used to describe the shift from offshore manufacturing to distant places like China, now values greater proximity to the US, the main source of demand and consumption.

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By capitalizing on lower costs, shorter and more reliable supply chains, companies can embrace this evolving paradigm of nearshoring, moving away from traditional notions of globalization towards regionalization.

In the context of selecting industrial sites and cities, nearshoring is both a catalyst and a deterrent, presenting complexities for companies considering Mexico.

The perspectives of strategic sourcing candidates and industrial real estate institutional investors contrast and converge when it comes to the broader implications of factors such as global supply chain restructuring, labor shortages, infrastructure constraints, trade rights and tariffs, risk aversion, and sustainability. However, one fundamental rule remains constant: location.

The main catalysts turn out to be proximity to the US, lower manufacturing costs, regionalization and the availability of labor in hot border cities, such as: Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, Reynosa and especially Monterrey.

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On the other hand, the dissuasive factors tend to be corrected by the natural internal migration of the Mexican population, typically from the south of the country, in search of better job offers.

Among the main ones are: infrastructure restrictions, trade tariffs and geopolitical factors: the imposition of US tariffs on products imported from China has led many companies to look for alternatives. However, geopolitical factors and trade policies can create uncertainties that may affect the competitive advantage of nearshoring to Mexico, for the better, more recently.