Cargo Business Newswire

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Top Story

Analyst: Mexico to overtake Japan as #2 auto exporter to U.S. in 2014

Japan has been in the top two auto exporters to the U.S. since the 1970s, but Mexico is expected to surpass it in 2014.

Cars manufactured in Mexico and sold in the U.S. will reach 1.69 million this year, topping the 1.51 million Japan-built vehicles, according to Guido Vildozo, an IHS Automotive analyst based in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Mexican auto exports to the U.S. have more than quadrupled from 1993 to 2013 and output almost tripled, lifted by lower tariffs under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Three additional plant openings by Nissan Motor Co., Honda Motor Co. and Mazda Motor Corp. will provide the final push to Mexican dominance, Bloomberg reports.

Mexico's numbers are expected to reach 1.9 million in 2015, topping Canada as the biggest exporter of cars to the U.S., consultant IHS Automotive estimated.

"It's certainly a low-cost place to produce and there's a lot of comfort with the caliber of the workforce in Mexico," Ron Harbour, a manufacturing analyst and partner at consultant Oliver Wyman, said in a telephone interview to Bloomberg. "In the late 80s and early 90s, what was coming in from Japan was overwhelming compared with what we thought about from Mexico back then. Obviously, things have changed."

For more of the Bloomberg story: businessweek.com