Several countries from around the world are interested in striking trade deals with Britainas it prepares to leave the European Union, new Prime Minister Theresa May said today.

“The leaders from India, Mexico, South Korea, and Singaporesaid that they would welcome talks on removing the barriers to trade between our countries,” May told reporters after a G20 summit in the Chinese city of Hangzhou.

“The Australian trade minister will visit the Ukthis week to take part in exploratory discussions on the shape of a UK-Australiatrade deal,” she added.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

LEÓN, Mexico (Aug. 24, 2016) — Group Michelin has started construction in Mexico of its 21st factory in North America — eight years after the global economic crisis of 2008 forced it to postpone the project.

“I’m really excited because a few years ago, in 2008, I had to come to this country to postpone our investment because of the crisis,” Michelin CEO Jean-Dominique Senard told Tire Business Aug. 22.

“At the same time I was incredibly impressed by the way the Mexican authorities took the news. So coming back with the decision (to revive the project) is a joy.”

Mr. Senard had earlier hosted a groundbreaking ceremony at the 242-acre site in central Mexico where the French tire company is investing $510 million in what, according to one senior executive, will be Michelin’s first greenfield passenger tire plant in North America in three decades.

In a speech, Mr. Senard said the León investment is the tire maker’s largest investment anywhere in 2016.

“The last time we launched a greenfield passenger tire plant in North America was over 30 years ago,” Scott Clark, executive vice president and COO of Michelin North America, said in a separate interview with Tire Business.

“So this is not something we do every day. This is a big deal and this is exactly the right place to be and at the right time.”

The factory, which will employ 1,000 when finished in late 2018, will be within a three-hour drive of 18 car maker assembly plants, Mr. Clark said. It is located in a new industrial park called León-Bajio, which stands beside the León-Silao highway.

The facility will have an annual installed production capacity of between 4 million and 5 million Michelin-brand tires, mostly in 18-inch-plus sizes for North American original equipment and replacement markets.

The plant’s output will “reflect the tremendous growth in the SUV, CUV and pickup markets, followed closely by high-performance tires,” Mr. Clark said. Most of the replacement tires will go to the U.S. and Canada, he added.

The plant, which will cover 1.5 million square feet, will have its own rubber mixing capabilities, according to the executive — something which he said is “not completely unique in the Michelin group.”

Asked about possible expansion plans, he said: “We take it one step at a time. We have almost (240 acres), which is an enormous amount of space. The likelihood of the plant expanding is very high.”

“There’s no plan as we speak to expand (this plant). But it’s bound to expand one day,” Mr. Senard replied when asked the same question.

Michelin already employs 700 in Mexico, primarily at a plant in Querétaro, 107 miles southeast of Leon, which makes non-Michelin brand tires such as BFGoodrich, Uniroyal, Taurus and Tigar. The plant has an installed annual capacity of 2 million tires.

Pete Selleck, chairman and president, Michelin North America Inc., told Tire Business separately that Michelin has “figured out how to operate within Mexico’s labor laws, which has given us much more confidence in taking this huge step (in León).”

He said that “labor issues” forced the company to mothball the Querétaro facility between August 2000 and April 2002.

“We had a situation that was untenable. I was involved. We tried to resolve it.”

Closing the plant, he said, was “one of the most difficult decisions” as it meant several hundred jobs were lost.

Referring to the León project, known internally as MX2, he added: “I’ve been with the company for 34 years, and so for me it’s very gratifying to see us reach this point.”

Idelfonso Guajardo Villarreal, Mexico’s federal economy secretary, told the groundbreaking ceremony’s audience of several hundred that by year-end 2018 the Mexican tire industry’s annual installed production capacity will be 31 million, compared with 21 million today.

“The new Michelin investment in Mexico represents a vote of confidence that strengthens the positioning of Mexico as an investment destination, because it comes from a company with a long tradition in the industry and widely recognized for its commitment to innovation,” Mr. Guajardo Villarreal said.

Miguel Márquez Márquez, governor of the Estate of Guanajuato, Mexico, called Michelin’s arrival the “most important investment for León so far” and said the tire maker’s investment “will trigger social and economic development….”

León Mayor Héctor López Santillana said Michelin’s choice of León recognizes the strengths we have and our ability to become an international economic actor.

“With this new plant, León will provide greater dynamism to the expanding automotive sector in the Bajio region. We are confident that together, we will open a new era of opportunities and shared development.”

Bombardier is moving some of its operations away from Northern Ireland to cheaper countries including Mexico and Morocco, the Belfast Telegraph can reveal.

The plane maker, which employs around 5,000 staff in Belfast, confirmed the transfer of “certain activities” it said it was “unable to undertake competitively in Northern Ireland”.

It added while it had undertaken “major investment in Northern Ireland” over the years and will “continue to focus on high-value, high-complexity production”, it must balance its costs with sites in Mexico and Morocco to “help to optimise our manufacturing footprint and ensure the future success of our business overall”.

This week the Canadian-owned manufacturer said it was bringing forward 95 planned redundancies.

More than 700 staff are due to go this year, with 1,080 planned by 2017.

Bombardier in east Belfast, along with other sites, produces a range of aircraft parts including the wings and fuselage of the flagship CSeries passenger jet.

“It is absolutely critical that we continue to transfer work packages in which we are no longer competitive so we can safeguard the long-term future of our Northern Ireland operations,” the company said.

It’s not clear whether the move will mean additional redundancies at the firm.

One worker, who did not wish to be identified, said: “Internally, employees have been asked to work harder and smarter each year since I can remember.”

The company said it continued to brief staff and unions about changes to the workforce and supply chain.

“We regularly send working parties from Belfast to Morocco, Mexico and other Bombardier sites, as well as to China, and we also host reciprocal working parties here,” Bombardier said.

Just this summer it was reported the company was cutting around 200 jobs in Toronto and moving them to Mexico and China.

According to one staff member, some work has flowed from Belfast to Mexico, including the production of composite parts.

“At present it (the Mexico factory) can make almost any structure and will do so soon,” they said.

Another employee said that there “has been a lot of the really old legacy contract work moving to Morocco and Mexico due to cost”.

Bombardier has invested in its North African factory, which produces operational parts for the CSeries, QSeries and CRJ jets.

Aside from the announcement that more than 700 jobs will go this year, and 1,080 between now and 2017, the company earlier this year asked staff to accept a pay freeze amid a “serious financial crisis” at the plane maker.

However, the workforce in Belfast is taking on a bigger role with the CSeries.

Last year the workforce here produced between 15 and 20 fuselage mid-sections for the aircraft as work was transferred from the company’s manufacturing partner in China to the east Belfast plant.

But one Bombardier worker said: “I challenge our unions, who are frightened to rock the boat.

“I’m fed up with hearing, upon another pay-off announcement, that the unions are shocked and surprised.

“We are not. We expect it. We see a bigger picture.”

There are now fresh calls from both the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP for Stormont to introduce a dedicated manufacturing strategy in order to tackle job losses – something that was previously rejected by Economy Minister Simon Hamilton.

TransCanada Corp. is placing a bet on Mexico’s demand for fuels.

The Calgary-based pipeline owner is joining with the Mexican company Sierra Oil & Gas to build an $800 million marine terminal and pipeline in the Mexican port of Tuxpan, the companies said in a statement. The project will transport gasoline, diesel and jet fuel to central Mexico.
Mexico, the largest importer of U.S. fuel, gets an infrastructure boost. The nation relies on imports for 55 percent of its gasoline needs, according to June data from Petroleos Mexicanos, the state-owned oil company. Pemex has struggled to process enough crude at its six refineries and has said it’s seeking partners to help with operations and improvements.

“There are not that many markets in the world where you can build a refined products infrastructure project of this scale, and Mexico is one of them,” Ivan Sandrea, chief executive officer of Sierra, said in a telephone interview. “Mexico needs more import infrastructure to meet growing fuel demand; I cannot see the country moving forward without that.”

TransCanada, which announced in March that it would sell minority stakes in its $2 billion Mexican natural gas pipeline business to help fund the $10.2 billion purchase of Columbia Pipeline Group Inc., will have a 50 percent stake in the project. Sierra, which is backed by Riverstone Energy Ltd and which won oil blocks in the country’s first competitive oil auctions, will have 40 percent. The remainder is owned by Mexico City-based Grupo TMM SA, a Latin America-focused maritime transportation company.

”We are extremely excited for this project which represents an important expansion of our portfolio in Mexico,” said Robert Jones, TransCanada’s Mexico president, in an emailed statement. “TransCanada’s construction and operating experience will provide significant synergies to safely transport refined products in the central region of the country.”

S

AN LUIS POTOSI, Mexico – To reach productivity benchmarks at its Mexico factory, BMW AG will embrace a new and innovative supply chain and logistics plan.

The German luxury maker won’t simply transfer its supply base from its other North American factory, which opened 22 years ago in Spartanburg, S.C. And it won’t demand that suppliers serving the South Carolina plant set up shop in Mexico, says Oliver Zipse, BMW board member for production.

Instead, it will create a new North American supply base.

“We will see all the latest state of the art here,” Zipse promised.

Those innovations will include:

• Assembly of parts modules for sequential delivery by BMW employees, operating apart from the vehicle production line.

• A GPS-based logistics web “geo-fence” that will track components coming into the plant and alert BMW about delays or problems.

• A nearby supplier park that can ship products in sequence as they are needed.

The factory will begin production in 2019, making BMW’s best-selling car in the United States, the 3-series sedan. It will be capable of building any of the automaker’s rear-wheel-drive vehicles that use BMW’s new flexible Cluster Architecture on one line. At capacity, the plant will be able to produce 150,000 vehicles annually and has been designed for easy expansion, Zipse says. It will include body and paint shops and an assembly line, but not metal stamping. The press shop will be outsourced.

The Mexico factory also has been designed so components come in at one end of the plant — a logistics advantage over the Spartanburg layout. The South Carolina plant layout has evolved over the last 22 years as the plant expanded. It now has what the company calls “fingers” of activity protruding along three corridors for 80 percent just-in-time deliveries to the assembly line.

In Mexico, BMW has the luxury of making parts delivery more streamlined from the beginning.

“You will have a substantial amount of direct assembly, where trucks end up at the delivery line,” Zipse said.

The venture also will make BMW a bit chummier with General Motors. The 300-acre San Luis Potosi site is adjacent to an established industrial park where many suppliers make components to serve a nearby GM plant, in operation since 2009.

Spartanburg does not have an adjoining supplier park, or even one in the near vicinity. And when that plant started from scratch in 1994 making the 3-series sedan, it also did not have the luxury of taking advantage of a neighbor’s established local supply chain. Compared with Mexico in 2016, Spartanburg of 1994 was a remote spot on the North American automotive supply chain map.

BMW began the search for a second production site in 2011, when the German automaker foresaw the global car market expanding quickly. BMW has ridden the wave of that market growth since launching North American manufacturing. Spartanburg started with the capacity to build about 70,000 cars a year. It is now the company’s largest auto plant, with expectations to produce 450,000 crossovers this year.

By comparison, with an initial capacity of 150,000 vehicles a year, San Luis Potosi is beginning at more than twice the scale that Spartanburg had.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico has imposed provisional duties on flat-coated steel imports from China and Taiwan as part of an anti-dumping investigation, the government said on Friday, in its latest move to protect the Latin American nation’s steel industry.

In a statement published in the government’s official gazette, the economy ministry said the duties on the steel from Taiwan would be for $0.563 per kg.

For China, the duties were set at varying levels for certain companies: $0.4385 per kg for Tangshan, $0.1926 per kg for Baoshan Iron and Steel Co , $0.3468 per kg for Beijing Shougang Cold Rolling Co, $0.4188 per kilo for Shougang Jingtang and $0.4385 per kg for the other exporters.

In recent months, Mexico has taken several steps to protect its struggling steel industry, including new import duties, anti-dumping quotas and enhancing customs controls to enforce the quotas.

The investigation was requested by the Mexican unit of steel producers Ternium, the government said.

Kansas City Southern’s operations in Mexico have experienced shipment delays since July 11 due to teacher protests occurring there.

The protests are directed towards Mexico’s government, but have occurred on or near Kansas City Southern de México S.A. de C.V. tracks stopping regular public freight rail transportation. Other Mexican railroads and transportation companies also are affected by the protests, according to a press release.

A southern line from Lazaro Cardenas through Morelia to Toluca is “impassible,” according to the company’s website. This has caused delays in Sanchez, Monterrey, Escobedo and Queretaro.

It is not possible to estimate the financial impact, if any, of the protests will have on the Kansas City-based rail company (NYSE: KSU) at this time, according to the release.

However, Kansas City Southern’s Mexican operations are a critical component of the company’s business. About 48 percent of the company’s annual revenue came from Mexico in 2015, according to the company’s annual report.

There is no resolution date to these interruptions, but the companies impacted have requested the relevant union and governmental authorities intervene.

Kansas City Southern, which is ranked No. 10 on the Kansas City Business Journal’s Top Public Companies List, is a transportation holding company headquartered in Kansas City. It has investments in the U.S., Mexico and Panama.

Michelin executives say a plant under construction in central Mexico will have no impact on South Carolina operations.

The French tire maker announced plans to build its 21st North American plant in Leon, Guanajuato, to produce tires for passenger cars and light trucks.

The $510 million plant is expected to commence production in late 2018 and initially make up to 5 million tires a year to supply auto factories in Mexico and the North American consumer market, according to Michelin.

Stephanie Tarbet, a spokeswoman for Greenville-based Michelin North America, said Tuesday that the Mexican plant won’t take anything away from the company’s operations in South Carolina.

In a statement to The Greenville News, she called the plant “good news for our company in Mexico, North America and globally.”

Tarbet said the Mexican plant would be part of Michelin North America and report to its president, Pete Selleck, in Greenville.

In a separate statement Monday announcing its second Mexican plant, Michelin said it chose the location because it’s a three-hour drive from 18 auto factories and that most of the tires made at the plant would be sold to automakers.

Being close to those customers will allow faster and more cost-effective delivery of product with less carbon emissions, Michelin said.

Numerous automakers have announced plants in Mexico in recent years, including BMW, which said last month it would make its 3 series vehicles at a $1 billion factory in San Luis Potosi beginning in 2019.

Michelin already employs about 580 people in Mexico, at its Mexican headquarters and a tire plant in Queretaro, according to a company fact sheet.

Michelin numbers its South Carolina workforce at 9,400, far more than any other U.S. state.

The bulk of those employees are at nine plants in Anderson, Greenville, Spartanburg and Lexington counties.

Michelin last year suspended operations at its earthmover tire plant in the Anderson County community of Starr, citing a slowdown in the global market for the giant tires.

Michelin says it allocated $2.1 billion for capital improvements in South Carolina over the past five years, 75 percent of what it spent in the entire United States over the period.