The Nuevo León Transformation Industry (Caintra) industry reported that 55.5% of companies with operations in the Monterrey metropolitan area see as a main obstacle in their performance the political landscape, which is influenced by Donald Trump’s commercial war.
“The political landscape was consolidated as the main obstacle to business performance for the third consecutive month,” the survey revealed Economic expectations of manufacturing February 2025 carried out by Caintra among the industry with operations in Nuevo León.
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The political landscape is at the highest level of obstacles since there is a record of the survey, added the poll of the business body.
He added that the lower external demand became the third largest obstacle to the industry, with 28.2% of companies.
These factors recorded significant increases in their perception as obstacles, especially for tariffs imposed by Trump on Mexican exports.
On February 4, the president of the United States paused a plan to impose 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, and a month later he also postponed the collection of rates on all products.
The increase in the price of raw materials increased its prevalence, being mentioned by 21.8% of companies. “The above is reinforced with the price index of the subjects that remains around 60 points,” said Caintra.
Manufacturing is kept in contraction phase
During February, the manufacturing dissemination indicators mostly showed a deceleration, accumulating four consecutive months in the contraction zone, the Chamber said.
On the production side, the indexes of new orders, physical volume of production and capacity used fell to 42.2, 44.7 and 43.9 points, respectively, remaining below 50 points.
The indices related to foreign trade were below the expansion threshold. However, the “exports” index increased slightly to 44.8, while that of “imports” decreased to 46.
As in the case of “exports”, the number of workers increased to 48.2 points, maintaining an upward trend.
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The increase was insufficient to overcome the 50 -point barrier. In the same situation are the “inventories”, which reached up to 49.5 points.
Regarding the investment, a slight increase was observed, with 23% of companies making purchases of machinery, equipment or constructions. However, this level remains below the average of the last 12 months.
