The president of the border city’s chapter of the nation’s maquiladora association, known as INDEX, recently provided numbers related to Tijuana manufacturing growth in 2015.

In a July edition of one of the City’s news publications, El Sol de Tijuana, local INDEX president, Federico Serrano informed that, thus far in 2015, twenty-nine firms announced that they will be initiating operations in the municipality in the near future.

This surge in Tijuana manufacturing growth will bring with it foreign investment in the approximate amount of US $103 million, as well as will be a catalyst that  results in the creation of 6,750 new positions for members of the City’s labor force. The importance of the maquiladora industry to the Tijuana economy is indisputable in that its maquiladoras are responsible for 47% of the employment that exists in its private sector.

Serrano credited the availability of a quality labor force, as well as a propitious geographic location for the Tijuana manufacturing growth that has transpired in this, and in recent years. He also praised the cooperation and efforts of economic development officials and personnel on both the state and local level such as those at SEDECO, the Baja California’s Secretariat of Economic Development, as well as at the Tijuana Economic Development Corporation (DEITAC).

In the El Sol de Tijuana article, Federico Serrano also compared 2015 results to date with the Tijuana manufacturing growth that local industry experienced in 2014, which was a significant one in terms of the expansion of existing industry in the City. According to the president of the local chapter of INDEX, a total of fifty-four expansions of existing maquiladoras were completed in the entire State of Baja California. Of that number, twenty-one of the existing facilities that implemented growth plans were in Tijuana proper.

Tijuana manufacturing growth has been, and is, diverse in nature. This year manufacturing in the high-tech commercial drone sector took off when the US’s largest manufacturer of the consumer craft, 3D robotics set up shop on the Baja California- California, US border in the first half of 2015. This year Tijuana has been successful in attracting investment from more traditional manufacturing, as well. Riverside, California-based trademark plastics announced in mid-May that it would be setting up an operation in Tijuana to do injection molding in a 33,000 square feet industrial space beginning in October. Of the total square footage, 20,000 will consist of Class 100,000 clean room capabilities.

Read the primary source for this post in its original Spanish at El Sol de Tijuana.