The National Chamber of the Textile Industry (Canaintex) celebrated the publication of the draft of the First Amendment to Annex 29 of the General Rules of Foreign Trade 2026 to strengthen the traceability of the sector and prevent smuggling from continuing to wreak havoc on this industry.
In an interview with T21, Rafael Torre Lamuño, president of Canaintex, explained that after the 2024 decree that prohibited certain finished products, smuggling migrated to bonded warehouses, where imports grew by 600 percent.
In that regard, he detailed the seriousness of the previous situation and the importance of the new regulations issued by the tax and customs authorities in the current fiscal year.
“The misuse of the regime in Strategic Fiscal Zones (RFE) presents a significant risk to sensitive sectors, such as textiles, due to the difficulties in tracing goods upon their release from customs. Additionally, not all inputs entering the RFE were processed and exported: some were diverted to the domestic market irregularly, to the detriment of formal industry and tax revenue,” Torre Lamuño stated.
The official document establishes the exclusion of textile goods from temporary import regimes, bonded warehouses, and RFE (Regional Export Regimes) to prevent irregular entry. This measure responds to the fact that the misuse of these schemes allowed finished products to enter the country without fulfilling tax obligations , directly affecting domestic businesses in the sector.
Regarding the future operation of the venues, Torre Lamuño considered that the private sector maintains a constant technical dialogue with the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP) and the National Customs Agency of Mexico (ANAM) .
The current strategy seeks to implement data science and technological tools in ports such as Lázaro Cárdenas and Manzanillo to detect suspicious shipments before they arrive in the country. The agency maintains that these oversight measures are necessary to ensure a level playing field among competitors and eliminate practices that undermine the rule of law.
Torre Lamuño emphasized that, although progress has been made, continued work on predictive data analysis is necessary to mitigate the smuggling that still persists along the country’s northern land borders. To achieve effective surveillance, Canaintex reiterated its commitment to collaborating with the federal government.
The head of the organization added that the outlook for the sector in 2026 is positive, estimating that the second half of 2026 will be one of the best periods for textile manufacturing due to the market recovery . He also pointed out that the combination of new domestic content regulations and the digitalization of customs will help boost the industry’s competitiveness in the short term.
The Mexican textile industry creates more than 1.1 million jobs and generates the highest added value of any manufacturing sector in the country, with 37.6% national content in its exports, according to data from Canaintex.
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