Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) need to know the market, as well as various operating rules in order to export their products; they also require support from state and federal governments and private enterprise to reach other countries, experts agreed.
At the conference SMEs and Export: Strategies to Internationalize Your Business , held at the Foreign Trade Congress. Globalization, Trade Agreements and Geopolitics: Impact on Business Growth , organized by Concanaco Servytur , Daniella Martínez , vice president of Businesswomen at the business organization, said that 90% of companies in Mexico are SMEs, and that only 9% of exporting firms are small and medium-sized enterprises.
“We need to look at these companies in order to promote and democratize trade,” said Martínez, who said that it is necessary to see how SMEs can be supported so that they can export and be more productive, “because they do not know how to do it,” he stressed.
“They must have a logistics distribution plan and get into the topic of digitalization, automation and technology, as well as have an export project, among other factors,” he said.
Martínez said that states and authorities must support the implementation of these steps, in which private initiatives would also have to intervene.
Juliana Mutis , CEO and founder of Minkadev , said that the protectionist policy that Donald Trump , President of the United States, seeks to impose, is making Mexico turn towards market diversification, which involves other factors and regulations, such as environmental ones, as is the case in Europe, which has a higher standard in this matter.
“This makes the work of SMEs more complicated, which means they have to comply with new environmental regulations,” he said.
Among other challenges for exporting, the specialist considered that technology, to meet sustainability goals, is another point to consider, since it leads to a green transition, which can lead to new markets.
“The green transition involves the creation of new jobs so that companies are more competitive,” Mutis stressed.
Meanwhile, Tania Caldu , director of Amazon ‘s Global Sales Program for Latin America , said that the company has a Global Sales program that is focused on Latin America and seeks to remove that barrier for SMEs to expand their businesses to the United States.
In this regard, he stressed that the marketplace giant offers support to these types of companies to advise them on their exports and helps them create a logistics plan.
He also said that Mexico has great potential for online commerce to increase, since companies that are in this program have grown 20% due to cross-border trade.
According to Mordor Intelligence , the freight and logistics market in Mexico is growing rapidly and is estimated to reach $171.4 billion by 2029. This growth is driven by increased cross-border trade.
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