The Mexico-United States Entrepreneurship and Innovation Council (MUSEIC) recently inked an accord aimed at promoting the increased integration of advanced manufacturing in North America, as a part of continuing efforts to foster cooperation between the two countries to:

  • Exchange best practices on technology commercialization;
  • Share proven strategies to develop regional innovation clusters and marketing chains;
  • Develop and share tools and best practices related to financing and promoting innovative and high-impact entrepreneurship.

As a part of the pilot program, members of the Council (there are twelved from each country) will work together to map and examine industrial groupings, or “clusters,” of advanced manufacturing in North America for the purpose developing strategies to promote their growth and their replication in other geographies within the NAFTA region. Additionally, Council members will work jointly in an effot to strenghten capabilities related to advanced manufacturing in North America by assessing supply chain linked challenges and opportunities, as well as the efficiency of communication linkages between parties that are interested in advancing their position within the North American manufacturing value chain.

Meetings on moving this initiative forward recently took place in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon and San Diego and Baja California, and were attended by representatives of academia and industry, as well as by members of MUSEIC. Due to the importance of integrating advanced manufacturing in North America, the Mexico-United States Entrepreneurship and Innovation Council has dedicated the sum of US $2 million to finance the mapping of the regions hi-tech clusters.

MUSEIC is a relatively new organization that held its first working sessions in 2010. The formation of the group resulted as an outgrowth of meetings held during that same year by the presidents of Mexico and the United States, Enrique Pena Nieto and Barack Obama. In additon to efforts at integrating advanced manufacturing in North America, the Council’s seven subcommittees are involved in projects that are aimed at achieving:

  • the formulation of tax incentives to encourage capital investment and entrepreneurship;
  • the development of a functional bi-national network of mentoring entrepreneurial individual and business start ups;
  • the fortification of ties, communication and collaboration between research centers and universities and businesses and investors.

Strengthened economic partnership over the last twenty years has resulted in benefits for both countries. The nations’ supply chains are, most notably, highly complementary in the areas of transport equipment, chemical production, and electronics and energy-relannovation Council ted production. The goal of the Mexico-United States Entrepreneurship and Innovation Council is to create similar, or the same, complementarity in activities related to advanced manufacturing in North America.