Cisco Systems will invest $4B USD in Mexico operations

Cisco Systems Inc. plans to spend as much as $4 billion in Mexico through 2018 to expand production, creating jobs in the country even as the American company cuts its global workforce by 7 percent.

Bloomberg news agency reported the spending will lead to 270 new direct jobs and 77 related positions, according to a statement from the Mexican government Tuesday Sept. 27. The biggest maker of equipment that runs the internet plans to upgrade its factories and increase production through contract manufacturers, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg earlier. The investment figure includes some spending that had already been planned.

The plan aids Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto as he seeks to show his economic reforms are attracting more investment. The timing could be delicate for Cisco, coming just after the U.S. presidential debate this week in which Republican candidate Donald Trump threatened to increase taxes on companies that move jobs to Mexico and other countries.

Including the new jobs, the spending plan will affect 4,830 direct employees in Mexico, the government said. The expansion enables the manufacturing in Mexico of products including routers, servers and video-conferencing screens.

“These facilities are expected to supply products to more than 110 countries, and directly complement our manufacturing efforts in the U.S. and around the world,” Cisco Chief Executive Officer Chuck Robbins said in a blog post Tuesday after meeting with Pena Nieto. “Mexico is rapidly becoming one of Latin America’s economic success stories.”

Cisco started operations in Mexico in 1993 and now has more than 1,000 employees there, Robbins said.

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The Cisco plan is one of the first major investment announcements by a U.S. company in Mexico since April, when Ford Motor Co. said it would spend $1.6 billion on a new small-car factory in Mexico, drawing a rebuke from Trump. It’s one of the top five spending announcements since Pena Nieto became president in 2012.

In June of last year, AT&T Inc. said it would invest about $3 billion to extend mobile Internet service to Mexico in addition to spending $4.4 billion earlier in the year to acquire Iusacell and Nextel Mexico.

Source: bloomberg.com