Thursday, May 24, 2007

Investment Protection Agreement signed - Mexico, India

Mexico has signed a 10 year bilateral investment promotion and protection program (BIPA) with India on May 21, 2007.

This is significant for several reasons.

  • Allows investment protection to foreign investors in both countries
  • Free repatriation of funds to investors
  • Allows Indian companies access to the USA and European market through manufacturing in Mexico
  • Offers protection of Intellectual Property (IP)
  • Opens the door for Preferential or Free Trade Agreement negotiations in the future

India’s government and private industry sees Mexico as a “trampoline” to the US market, and also entrance into Mexico and Central America.

I have no doubt we will begin to see some Indian investment in Mexico and India-Mexico joint ventures in the very near future.

I strongly recommend that Mexico review, simplify and speedup the time and reduce the costs related to obtaining a travel visa for Indian business people.

Related Links

India, Mexico sign investment protection agreement

India looks for key to NAFTA in Mexico

India eyes free trade with Mexico for better access to NAFTA

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

How to write numbers in Spanish

A great link brought to my attention by Brett Grossman about writing numbers in Spanish.

At first glance the site is in Spanish and may frighten you....keep going it's quite easy to understand.

The page provides the correct spelling in Spanish and is a must have if you're going to be working with written numbers, writing checks or just want to improve your knowledge of Spanish.

He says "It is a link that might be helpful for new-to-Mexico business people...the finer points of writing numbers in Spanish...it drove me crazy when I first got to Tampico...I can't tell you how many checks were rejected because of the smallest error and the cost of a bounced check at Serfin is upwards of $800 pesos + IVA".

If you're new in Mexico and don't understand Spanish make sure to go here Nombres de los numeros en Español (Names of the Numbers in Spanish) and make a copy for your office, wallet or checkbook....you'll be glad you did.

Related Links

Nombres de los numeros en Español (Names of the numbers in Spanish)


Spanish Language: Counting the Cardinal Numbers

donQuijote: Numbers 1 to 100

donQuixote: Larger Spanish Numbers

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Mexico Investment Portal

Aaron Burda and I have begun work on a very interesting (and hopefully useful) project. Providing information and online links, in English, for foreign investors and businesses wishing to examine, analyze and evaluate Mexico for business operations.

The Mexico Investment Information Project (link)

We are a Creative Commons licensed project (i.e. not for profit) whose mission is to provide the best online resource to foreign businesses looking to invest in Mexico. Currently online is a very rough "mock up" of a website that we are planning to build over the next several months.

If you would like to participate in the project and feel you have some valuable expertise to contribute please apply for a userid.

Project History

The Investment Portal is a combination of two projects. Lee Iwan's Accumulated Experience Blog and Aaron Burda's UC Davis Graduate School of Management Mexico Research Project. Both Lee and Aaron were convinced that the quality of the information available on the Internet about doing Business in Mexico could be substantially improved.

Project Future

We hope to organize the existing Internet English language resources about doing business in Mexico and add to it through having select volunteers write succinct articles on relevant business topics.

If you are a Banker, Lawyer, Accountant, Environmental Expert, HR Manager, Logistics Manager or other qualified and experienced individual with business expertise about Mexico and would like to provide information, advice, or website links to this project, don't hesitate to contact us.

Related Information

Mexico Investment Portal

Understand Mexico Blog

Business South of the Border

Lee Iwan Accumulated Experience