Queretaro, Qro. Faced with the logistical crisis brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, the state’s Private Initiative (IP) in conjunction with government agencies is working on import substitution, said the president of the Mexican Business Council for Foreign Trade, Investment and Technology (Comce). Querétaro chapter, Óscar Peralta Casares.
Local companies, he said, should find ways to be more competitive, detecting local supply options, particularly regarding the impact of inflation.
“We have to look for import substitution, we have to see how we can be more competitive. Today we have a clear surplus where we export more than we import”, he exposed.
In coordination with the Secretariat of Sustainable Development (Sedesu), work is being done on the development of a program to substitute imports, for which the businessman estimated that Querétaro has a surplus of approximately 650 million dollars.
However, he shared that work is also being done on the creation of a program to identify exportable products in the state, with the purpose of generating support schemes for companies to bet on foreign trade.
“The idea is precisely to identify the exportable product and help companies to become exporters; that is the census that we started (…) We are finishing defining the guidelines of the program, it is a program that Sedesu leads with the state government and us as a council, ”he said.
This program will be designed to detect the state’s exportable supply in all productive sectors.
Prior to this initiative, it is estimated that there are 1,800 small and medium-sized companies in the entity with the potential to place their products abroad.
In 2021, the value of exports from Querétaro totaled 14,560.3 million dollars, which represented an increase of 13.1% in relation to 2019, before the effects of the pandemic, because in that year the value amounted to 12,868.7 million dollars, exposes the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi).