William Lew, principal of North American Production Sharing, says further Mexican port growth can only be a good thing for his border-zone maquilador clients.
   "A lot of growth down here is coming with raw materials from Asia, so that would be wonderful and extremely helpful in development," he says.
   In 2005, North American Production Sharing grew by 37 percent, and now provides employment for 4,000 employees in 30 maquiladoras near Tijuana and Juarez. It recently expanded to larger Tijuana headquarters, in addition to its San Diego-side location. While a third of the company's clients are automotive sector companies, that base is broadening as Mexico's trade agreement list does likewise.
   Lew says second- and third-tier automotive suppliers are the leading source of queries, including a new project with an East Coast-based metal fabricator. But he's getting calls from all over, including a call from a Chinese company wanting to do finishing of raw materials coming from China.
   "I feel very good about Mexico's place, having gone to Shanghai," he says. "The wage differential is significant, but when you look at paying $12 an hour in the U.S., and to go to Mexico and have the $2 range, vs. China at seventy-five cents to a buck, your biggest gain is from Mexico."
   That advantage may be proving even more significant amid reports that China's boom is now translating into labor shortages as that nation's wages, skill sets and living standards rise dramatically, forcing reassessment of how much low cost production is truly worth.
   Of course, that's a question being batted around in North America too. Asked about his viewpoint on the Mexican-U.S. immigration debate swirling in town halls and legislative chambers, Lew says, "My observation over the years is that the work force in the border region of Mexico has become more stable. More people are staying, more people like the region, and it's not necessarily a jumping-off point. I see the stability here, the jobs, the families and the infrastructure. People are coming here for work and staying here. The maquiladora industry has obviously helped that."
   That said, increased border patrol enforcement may also be helping along that trend. In any case, says Lew, the interior growth of Tijuana as a job center has been tremendous, even as the labor market tightens a bit since the period from 2000 through 2004. He says the sense of stability extends to the energy picture in Northern Mexico, which he calls more stable than California's.
   "I can't think of a brownout ever in 15 years in business here," he says. The cost of electrical power is about 7 cents a kilowatt hour, but can increase by 50 percent to 75 percent for a few months during the summer.
   Just as affordable are the lease rates, which he says have risen by no more than 15 percent over the past decade. And the property owners are "handshake kind of guys," he says, where two-page leases are the norm. Los Pinos, owned by the Limon family, is one park he singles out for its easy working relationship.
   What's grown more complex, says Lew, is maintaining compliance with government policy.
   "We spend a lot of time on labor, mandatory audits, social security audits," he says. "The government is extremely aggressive in maintaining corporate compliance. That has gotten much more intense over the years. But if you run a business, you need to be in compliance with the laws. They're making sure people and the environment are being protected, and I agree with those things."
   Customs compliance is a very technical discipline that is one of the chief services his company offers, Lew says. And while it does take half a day to cross your truck to the other side, he says there has been a tremendous amount of improvement in the new customs ports.
   "Additionally we now have clients shipping all their production via UPS and FedEx, producing today and it's going out in the afternoon," he says. "It takes an extra step of planning vs. having production in the U.S., but it's not a two-day ordeal."
   He does not expect a Mexican election year to be an ordeal either, noting the maquila industry's endurance of seven administrations. "The employment numbers are so great, and the impact is so great. I think Mexico has been cognizant of that and careful to respect that. I would expect the next administration to do the same."