San Antonio Express-News
This weekend, a group of six Mexican congressmen and two officials from Mexico’s Economy Department known as Economía are returning home from Washington.
The group had not traveled directly to Washington, however. The officials stopped in San Antonio on the way last week. Their visit here Wednesday portends better South Texas business ties with Mexico’s small- and medium-sized businesses.
In San Antonio, the Mexican delegation visited the University of Texas at San Antonio’s Institute for Economic Development before meeting in Washington with U.S. Small Business Administration officials and U.S. House Small Business Committee members.
The group would not have visited any other U.S. business development center other than UTSA’s.
The UTSA institute’s International Trade Center already has trained about 40 groups at Mexican universities to start similar business development centers. The grass-roots Mexican centers may be newer, more informal and simpler versions of U.S. centers, but Mexico’s federal government senses their potential.
The Mexicans aim to boost the reach of the business-assistance centers by creating a national framework for their operations and adding incentives for the development of small- and medium-sized businesses.
“We are interested in knowing the best practices at this institution that helps small and medium businesses,” Javier Zambrano, a Monterrey congressman, said at the UTSA institute’s downtown campus offices.
The chairwoman of the congressional economy committee, Adriana Rodríguez Vizcarra Velázquez, said 97 percent of Mexico’s businesses are small, and that they employ 72 percent of Mexico’s workers.
“The United States has 53 years of experience” in business development, said Rodríguez of León. “In Mexico, we have only five or six years.”
During that short period, the UTSA institute has been training Mexican university-sponsored groups to operate business development centers, a program called Diplomado. Cliff Paredes, director of the institute’s International Trade Center, said his center recently taught a class of 100 people in Mexico City and soon will train another in Veracruz.
Both Rodríguez and Zambrano are members of the National Action Party, or PAN. They noted that Mexican President Felipe Calderón, also of PAN, promised more jobs during his campaign last year. His administration is targeting small businesses to fulfill that promise.
Rodríguez stressed that she wants Mexico’s business development centers to be more than incubators. The UTSA institute itself goes far beyond incubation.
Among the services it provides in 79 South Texas counties are market and demographic research, business planning assistance, patent and trademark searches, professional development training, international trade assistance, government procurement help, technology commercialization services, human resources training and workplace safety programs.
The UTSA institute, partially funded by the SBA, reports that from 1996 to 2006 it assisted 98,917 South Texas businesses and conducted 11,642 training events. For fiscal year 2005 alone, institute clients reported back that they had created 3,736 jobs and saved 2,335 others.
The increased business activity, of course, leads to more tax revenues for local, state and federal governments. The UTSA institute calculates that for every $1 in government funding, the governments receive $7.11 in additional tax revenues.
That is precisely what Mexico wants to duplicate in each of its 31 states.
