By Kelly Simmons, Managing Editor and Senior Writer
A new law has changed the requirement that Mexican businesses join a chamber of commerce and now allows them to merely register with a chamber as well as choose which chamber they prefer. The difference in the cost between joining a Mexican chamber and simply registering can be substantial, with Canacintra for example, costing only 80 pesos for registering and between 500 and 1,100 pesos for joining in Juarez. The change is creating more competition among Ciudad Juarez chambers for membership and may result in the demise of some of the smaller chambers, according to a report in the El Paso Times. Larger chambers can afford to offer more services to their members, making it likely that businesses will switch to the larger ones now that they are given a choice. The change may also pressure chambers to increase the services they offer in order to entice businesses to join instead of simply to register. The new law, took effect on January 1. The city's general chamber, Canaco has about 4,000 members and the industrial chamber, Canacintra, has about 2,500 members. These two are the largest chambers in Juarez. Smaller chambers include Canirac, the restaurant chamber and Canacope, the small business chamber.
In other news, the number of maquilas in Mexico increased to a total of 3,346 with a total of 867,164 workers, the Secretary of Commerce announced at the turn of the year. More than half of the maquilas operating in Mexico belong to North American companies. The numbers of workers employed in maquila plants, a program begun in the 1960s by the Mexican government to fight poverty in border cities and protect Mexican industries, has gone up by 76,000 since the end of 1995. Meanwhile the Department of Commerce and Industrial Development (Secretaria de Comercio y Fomento Industrial, Secofi) predicted that the number of maquilas will grow by 15 percent (31 new factories) and create more than 6,000 new jobs in Ciudad Juarez during the coming year. Currently the city is working on 4 potential maquila projects that would require 4,000 new workers. Neighboring border cities in Chihuahua State, Janos and Casas Grandes, are also expecting 10 percent increases in new maquilas.
Sources: Diario de Juarez, El Paso Times