Manitoba, Mexico launch trading partnership based at CentrePort

A new trading partnership between Manitoba and Mexico aims to help Mexican companies enter markets in Canada and the midwestern United States more easily through CentrePort's inland port in Winnipeg.

A memorandum of understanding has been signed to create an investment consortium between CentrePort Canada and ProMexico, a government agency responsible for strengthening Mexico's participation in the international economy, and development banks BancoMext and Fideicomisos Instituidos en Relacion con la Agricultura.

Under the new agreement, the consortium will work together to give companies "single-window access to investor services" offered by the four organizations and provide access to CentrePort's 8,000-hectare rail, truck and air port.

"Manitoba is very happy to be opening up new trading opportunities with our friends in Mexico," Premier Selinger said in a news release Tuesday.

"As the biggest inland port and foreign trade zone on the continent, CentrePort Canada provides Mexican business a perfect location to manufacture and ship goods into the North and across the U.S. and Canada."

Selinger witnessed the signing of the MOU along with Mario Rodriguez Montero, minister for trade and investment with the Mexican embassy to Canada, and more than 20 Mexican business leaders and government officials who are in Manitoba for an investment mission hosted by CentrePort Canada.

Diane Gray, CentrePort's president and CEO, said while two-way trade between the two countries totalled $34 billion last year, many Mexican goods — especially food and agricultural products — go through "middle-man" operations in the United States before they end up in Canada.

"It is a trade reality that increases company costs for transportation and distribution, and adds to consumer prices," she said in the news release.

"This is about streamlining the supply chain and ultimately, providing Mexican companies with a more direct, timely way of distributing their products."

Rodriguez Montero said collaborating with CentrePort is a "logical and critical next step in increasing trade between Canada and Mexico" and making sure companies are benefiting from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

"We have done this successfully in Chicago and now it is time to focus our efforts in Canada," Rodriguez Montero said.