A Mexican perspective on calls for an automotive industry cluster for the Rio South Texas region

René Xavier González, head of new business development and marketing for Sidee Industrial Development in Matamoros, has given a Mexican perspective to the idea of a bi-national auto cluster initiative.The idea has been proposed by the Council for South Texas Economic Progress. González said some companies may need convincing about the data they share but he thinks there will be buy-in. “Sometimes there are issues about confidentiality and security. A lot of companies would rather kind of keep kind of a low profile,” González said. “But the fact that everybody's here, the fact that everybody is representing all the individual EDCs is already a huge win for COSTEP. Cobifer is here. We're representing CODEM, the Matamoros business community. It is very encouraging to see.” Gonzalez continued:  “From the Matamoros side, we’re in. We just need steps. Like, okay, give us a data registry, make sure that it's in Spanish. My job would be to talk to the 30 members of CODEM, sell them on the idea and make sure that this is something viable, something that benefits their individual business.  “So, for example, in order to become part of the cluster, the individual manufacturing companies have to be have to register and pay a fee. So, for example, my job with the three automotive manufacturing companies that I have in my industrial park, I have to go tell them, this is why this benefits you. You have to sign up for this. So, the more informed that we all are, the better that we can actually help sell (the project). Go to www.riograndeguardian.com to read the latest border news stories and watch the latest news videos.