Washington, DC

May 19, 2010

The United States is Mexico’s largest trading partner and largest foreign investor. Mexico is the third largest U.S. trading partner after Canada and China, and is the U.S. second largest foreign supplier of petroleum. The U.S.-Mexico border is one of the busiest, most economically important borders in the world, with nearly one million legitimate travelers and nearly a billion dollars worth of goods legally crossing the border each day. Eighty percent of this trade crosses the land border on trucks and trains. Border states are not the only ones that benefit from this dynamic trade relationship--a total of 22 U.S. states have Mexico as the number one or number two destination for their exports, including California, Iowa, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee and Wisconsin.

The northern Mexican city has a modern infrastructure ideal for foreign and local companies, making it the second best city to do business in Mexico, reports Contenido magazine. A close coordination among governments and ambitious planning have gone a long way in industrializing the city and the State.

Gerardo Perez Castillo walks down Libertad Street in the historical section of Chihuahua City. At the corner, a traffic display informs him that he has 30 seconds cross the six lanes of Venustiano Carranza Avenue. Perez is heading to his job at Foxconn, a company assembling cell phones for Motorola and one of the 80 foreign assembly plants operating in the city’s seven industrial parks. Chihuahua City took solid steps to industrialize during the last 35 years as it let loose from the State’s traditional livestock and mining industries.

Today, 14,961 businesses of every industry operate in the city and its outskirts.