For both bureaucratic and technological reasons, the city of Juárez has been unable to expand its international airport to accomodate the exponential growth in freight operations for maquiladora plants. The lost revenues are going, instead, to the El Paso International Airport, which handles 16 freight flights per day compared to two for Juárez. Air cargo flights leave about $1 million per year in fees for the city of El Paso, according to El Paso Director of Aviation Bill Rankin, and that doesn't include the money the cargo businesses bring to El Paso. Ciudad Juárez is losing millions of dollars in potential freight business.
The El Paso Times reported that several years ago, Juárez officials proposed an airport expansion that included an air freight facility. However, because of problems with customs clearing houses and related international border issues, the plan had to be postponed. Also, according to Rankin, Juárez lacks the technology to build such a facility.
The maquilas are generating so much freight business, Rankin said, that El Paso airport officials are building a $26 million freight facility, which will be completed in the summer of 1998. The facility will include a 135,000-square-foot warehouse, ramps and runways specifically designed for freight-bearing airplanes.
"We're just not set up to handle air freight," said Juan Jauregui, Juárez airport operations director. "We just don't have customs operations, ramps or runways to deal with that type of cargo. I don't know when we will. That's all I can say."
Source: El Paso Times
Ciudad Juárez has more maquiladora workers than any other city, 180,000, stated Marco Antonio Valenzuela, president of the National Council of the Maquiladora Export Industry, in an El Paso Times interview July 10. He also said the council is preparing a program to build 300,000 homes for maquiladora employees over the next three years.
Valenzuela said that El Paso is ripe for maquiladora suppliers since, according to the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexico will be allowed to buy components only from manufacturers in the United States and Canada beginning in 2001. "You just don't talk about Juárez, you don't talk about El Paso, you talk about El Paso-Juárez as a single development zone," he said.
Members of the South El Paso Redevelopment and Revitalization Association met with U.S. Representative Silvestre Reyes in early July and said the congressman promised to propose a bill to the cut the $400 limit for U.S. shoppers in Mexico. The bill would be in retaliation for Mexico's refusal to change its $50 limit on U.S. purchases made by Mexicans, a law passed in the early 1970s and seriously enforced beginning in 1983. The $50 limit discourages Juárez shoppers from buying in El Paso, and has seriously hurt some businesses, according to Tanny Berg, president of the association.
In the past two months, Reyes has met with Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, Mexican Ambassador Jesús Silva Herzog, and Mexican congressional representatives, urging them to raise the limit. He has also lobbied U.S. President Bill Clinton and various Cabinet-level secretaries. Alonso Flores, executive director of the South El Paso business group, said Reyes would prefer that the United States take action on its own. Reyes' press secretary, Lina Garcia, said there is no immediate plan to propose a bill, though South El Paso business group members expect Reyes to take action if Mexico does not raise its U.S. spending limit by September.
Berg said that after years of working through diplomatic channels, border merchants now believe the U.S. needs to threaten retaliation. "Only if Mexican businesses get hit in this and start to scream will this get taken care of," she said. Various merchants interviewed by the El Paso Times said they'd be happy with even a $100 limit, though most would prefer to see a raise to $200-300. "We're saying it ought to be fair," said Berg.
Source: El Paso Times