|
El
Paso
Best
of TwoWorlds
Staff
Report
El
Pasoans have been trading with Mexicans for more than four
centuries. It is an arrangement that provides residents the best
of both worlds.
Four centuries later, modern
El Paso
is most
assuredly intertwined with its Mexican neighbor, Ciudad Juárez.
“The dominant economy around here is Juárez without a
doubt,” says El Paso Mayor Ray Caballero. “How we integrate
with that economy is very important to our future. The beautiful
thing about
El Paso
is we have
everything you have in the
United States
, plus, after
400 years of doing business with
Mexico
, we should
know everything there is to know about
Mexico
.”
Over the years
El Paso
has
transitioned from an economy reliant on manufacturing jobs to one
more oriented towards services. The service sector has seen an
increase in health care, professional, and business services. This
increase most likely results from a growing need for services to
support the rapidly expanding border region.
At the same time, manufacturing employment has fallen as
El Paso
’s once
large textile and apparel industry suffers from a relocation of
garment industry jobs to
Mexico
.
El Paso
’s challenge
is to figure how to better benefit from the neighboring maquila
industry.
Caballero notes many
El Paso
businesses
are familiar with doing business on both sides of the border.
“There are very few places you can go where the people
understand
Mexico
,” he says.
“What this community has is an unusual number of these people.
That is our value piece.”
El Paso
has other
value pieces as well. Juárez, across the
Rio Grande
from
El Paso
, is
Mexico
’s
fourth-largest city and number 1 in terms of maquila employment.
El Paso
companies can
provide Just-In-Time delivery with ease. Additionally, plant
management still uncomfortable living in
Mexico
can live in
El Paso
and commute
daily to the manufacturing operation.
NAFTA
opportunities
NAFTA and the maquila industry have created new
opportunities for suppliers and capital-intensive manufacturing in
El Paso
. Since 1980,
the number of maquiladora plants in
Mexico
has more than quintupled, and there are more than 300 in Juárez,
employing more
...Continued
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