Monterrey.- The wave of investment that Mexico faces due to nearshoring will slow down if the federal government does not guarantee a supply of electricity to those companies that are arriving in the country, warned Gregorio Sánchez Hernández.
The corporate business director of the Mexican Real Estate Bank (BIM) considered that this is the main challenge in terms of infrastructure that the Government must solve.
In addition to investment in highways, security in them and even in the construction of affordable housing, through subsidies, he said in an interview after a meeting with private construction builders held yesterday at the Entity.
The latest data from Inegi indicates that in 2021, public investment in infrastructure for the generation and distribution of electricity in the country totaled 4,935 million pesos, in real terms, measured with pesos of that year.
This amount represented 82 percent less than that exercised in the last year of the previous six-year term and the lowest figure since 2006, the latest historical data available from the Inegi.
He commented that the bank he represents is financing industrial parks in various states of the country, but that the constant in all of them is the uncertainty of the electricity supply.
“The problem is the infrastructure, and in particular the lack of energy, since we are talking about industries that work 24/7 and that demand a lot of electricity,” he said.
“These companies, mostly from Asia, have to arrive no matter what, but by not providing them with electricity, they will slow down their arrival in the country, that is, it will be very slow.”
He added that the federal government has to run at the same speed that companies are arriving today.
“It has to provide the necessary infrastructure and even facilitate the construction of housing for all the thousands of workers that these companies are going to hire,” he said.
The manager said that, in general terms, the production of houses in the Country is going well and has a good perspective throughout 2023.
However, Sánchez Hernández indicated that the main challenge continues to be affordable housing – with a value of less than 400,000 pesos – since it is hardly being built anymore.
He explained that the developers have stopped building these houses because the lower-income beneficiaries of Infonavit and Fovissste are not being sued.
This, he added, because the credit that these institutions offer them for a house of this type is not enough, the price of which rose due to the rise in materials and land.
“The federal government must enter here, reactivating subsidies for this type of housing; and also the municipalities and states, obtaining cheap land for these projects and lowering the costs of licenses, procedures, the Public Registry, and the banks have to intervene by lowering the financing “, he acknowledged.
