“Merida and its surroundings meet all the conditions to become a business development center 4.0, in the coming years, “a kind of Silicon Valley”, in the lands of the Special Economic Zone of Progress (EEZ)”, says Enrique Huesca Fernández , official of the Ministry of Finance, in charge of the project.
Mérida features universities and research centers of high level, a scientific and technological park, industrial parks, highly qualified personnel and Yucatecan companies that make and demand programming services.
According to the official, Mérida and its conurbated area of influence of 1.1 million inhabitants, offers excellent quality of life, security, a business class that invests and believes in its region, an airport with national and international connectivity, innovative real estate development and highe quality services.
These conditions will attract 500 plants in the long term, with an investment of 3.1 billion US dollars and a generation of more than 33,000 jobs, mainly engineers and technicians in mechatronics, electronics, information technologies, programmers, experts in code type R, etcetera.
“In recent years, Yucatan has dedicated itself to train this type of professionals, which is vital for an industry that demands qualified personnel”, explains Huesca Fernández, executive secretary of the Federal Authority of Special Economic Zones.
“We have been building this model for two years, featuring all the ingredients to operate in the medium term,” he adds.
Progreso EEZ has an area of 1,751 hectares, of which 320 are federal property and the rest is integrated into an “expanded polygon” within which you can request authorization from the federal government to open a “comprehensive administration” on a piece of land of at least 20 hectares and with a minimum investment of 90 million dollars.
This area will be enabled to receive companies of the technological sector, with all the fiscal incentives of the special economic zones.
The president of the Business Coordinating Council, Juan Manuel Ponce Díaz, explains that the EEZ will specialize in software development, but will also be able to produce technology-based manufacturing, including cell phones, medical equipment, just to name a couple.
“Not only that, it can also include ‘call centers’, says Huesca Fernández. “Let’s think, for example, of accounting software services, which require huge centers of that type to serve their thousands of clients in the United States. Yucatan will be able to satisfy the demand for these services, because it has the human capital, universities and research centers, as well as safety, quality of life, air connectivity, housing availability, recreation areas, golf courses, beaches… you name it! That is why Yucatán has everything to become the Mexican “Silicon Valley”.
Yucatán has a technological ecosystem based on public universities such as Uady, which level of quality is difficult to replicate in other states, as well as private universities and research centers that can not be generated overnight either.
“In addition to Yucatan, there are other similar ecosystems in Guadalajara, Monterrey and Mexico City, but these venues are already saturated, and suffer from labor shortages, however this part of the country has highly qualified human capital available ,” Huesca continued.
According to the official,, all these conditions have attracted the attention of companies from countries such as Singapore or Korea, one month ago, managers of the company Palantir, worth 20 billion dollars, visited Yucatan to explore the possibilities of expansion within Yucatecan territory, as well as Honeywell, another international consortium of electronics.
TYT Newsroom with information from yucatan.com.mx
