VZCZCXRO8499
PP RUEHCD RUEHGD RUEHHO RUEHNG RUEHNL RUEHRD RUEHRS RUEHTM
DE RUEHMC #0306/01 1842001
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 022001Z JUL 08
FM AMCONSUL MONTERREY
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3001
INFO RUEHME/AMEMBASSY MEXICO PRIORITY 3988
RUEHXC/ALL US CONSULATES IN MEXICO COLLECTIVE
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHINGTON DC
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHINGTON DC
RUEHMC/AMCONSUL MONTERREY 8474

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 MONTERREY 000306 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT PLEASE PASS TO USTR 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECON EFIN EIND EINT EINV PGOV MX
SUBJECT: NUEVO LEON DEVELOPS A HIGH TECHNOLOGY SERVICE INDUSTRY; 
WORKING ON NEW PRODUCT INNOVATION 
 
REF: A) 2007 MONTERREY 783 B) 2007 MEXICO 4451 
 
MONTERREY 00000306  001.2 OF 004 
 
 
¶1.  (SBU)  Summary.  The state of Nuevo Leon continues to pursue 
higher value added industries through a government led strategy, 
highlighted by the Research and Technological Innovation Park. 
The Research and Technological Innovation Park (PIIT for its 
initials in Spanish) has made substantial strides, with five 
completed buildings, and will include research centers operated 
by the government, universities, major companies, and smaller 
entrepreneurs.  Nuevo Leon has had significant success 
attracting high technology outsourcing work, based on an ample 
supply of local engineers.  It is less clear whether the Nuevo 
Leon strategy, focused on government planning and promotion, 
will succeed in its long term goal of developing a homegrown 
innovation sector.  End Summary. 
 
 
 
Nuevo Leon's plan to Promote High Technology Innovation 
 
 
 
¶2.  (SBU)  Nuevo Leon Governor Jose Natividad Gonzalez Paras has 
a vision to move Nuevo Leon from manufacturing to a 
knowledge-based economy.  Nuevo Leon's plans are government 
designed and led, initially focusing on bringing foreign 
investment and offshore technology work to Nuevo Leon.  Nuevo 
Leon has also attempted to foster homegrown companies through 
business incubator and accelerator programs.  In addition, Nuevo 
Leon is seeking to develop clusters with neighboring states, and 
has organized a conference on clusters for early July.  Overall, 
Nuevo Leon hopes to leap frog to a technology industry through 
foreign investment and the resulting technology transfer. 
Meanwhile, Nuevo Leon has only made limited efforts on several 
fundamental issues, such as protection of intellectual property 
rights, venture capital financing, and rule of law.  Nuevo 
Leon's strategy has delivered immediate dividends in outsourcing 
work and the landmark PIIT technology park.  However, their hope 
to generate an innovation cluster is a long-term project, 
stretching well beyond the end of Governor Gonzalez's term in 
¶2009. 
 
 
 
¶3. (U)  Nuevo Leon has identified several new strategic 
industries such as software, biotechnology and nanotechnology to 
complement old standbys like automotive and home appliances. 
The cornerstone of Nuevo Leon's plan is the Research and 
Technological Innovation Park (PIIT), which combines research 
efforts by the government, academics and industry.  Nuevo Leon 
features the PIIT prominently in its promotion brochures for 
foreign investors.  After a slow start, the PIIT is beginning to 
match up to the hype, with five completed buildings, and has 
secured tenants for its entire area.  Moreover, all of the PIIT 
buildings are projected (perhaps optimistically) to be completed 
by December 2008.  There are further discussions to build a 
second technology park next to the PIIT.  The PIIT will include 
state and federal government research facilities, in addition to 
research centers operated by three top local universities 
(including the prestigious Monterrey TEC) and the University of 
Texas at Austin, Texas A& M University and Arizona State.  In 
addition, several large firms will have research facilities in 
PIIT, including Motorola, PepsiCo, the Indian software company 
Infosys, and local Mexican conglomerates such as Vitro, Xignux, 
and Sigma (a division of Alfa), and 42 small firms as part of a 
software cluster.  The investigators in PIIT will work in areas 
such as software, biotechnology, nanotechnology, electrical 
design, food and logistics.  The PIIT expects to employ 2,400 
people with an investment of approximately $85 million USD. 
 
 
 
¶4.   (SBU)  One of Nuevo Leon's key comparative advantages is 
the availability of low cost engineers.  According to Andres 
Franco, Nuevo Leon Under-Secretary for Foreign Investment and 
International Commerce, Nuevo Leon features 93 colleges with 
150,000 students, 213 technical programs with 52,000 students, 
and currently graduates 5,000 engineers each year.  The 
availability of low cost engineering talent has attracted 
companies such as Technip, which provides engineering services 
to American oil companies.  When Technip found it difficult to 
hire petroleum engineers in Houston, they chose Monterrey over 
India as their backroom office due to the number of engineers 
and geographical proximity.  Technip established its Monterrey 
office in 2008, and plans to expand from 29 to 120 employees. 
Rene Mathieu, local head of Technip, sends the new hires to the 
United States for six months of training.  Kellogg, Brown and 
 
MONTERREY 00000306  002.2 OF 004 
 
 
Root also provides engineering services from Monterrey to the 
Houston-based petroleum industry, following the same model as 
Technip.  In another area, Alvatrix offers IT services (server 
maintenance) to U.S. based firms in Texas, and obtains cost 
competitiveness through its location in Monterrey.   In general, 
the foreign companies appear pleased with the quality of Mexican 
engineers.  Rockwell and Technip consider Mexican engineers at 
the same level as in the United States, although Siemens 
disagreed, commenting that the Mexican engineers were less 
productive. 
 
 
 
¶5.  (U)  Monterrey TEC University has model business incubators 
and accelerators to encourage new business formation, including 
high technology companies.  The business incubators (for new 
start-ups) and business accelerators (to expand existing small 
firms) provide coaching from business professors, networking 
with other entrepreneurs, and technology transfer from existing 
businesses.  Monterrey TEC officials told Econoffs that the 
primary obstacle to new business formation remains access to 
financing, since the market for venture capital in Mexico is 
still limited (see reftel B).  Monterrey TEC plans to establish 
'investor clubs,' so that once the Monterrey Tec professor deems 
the companies to be ready, the entrepreneurs can present their 
business plans to a committee of potential investors, which 
could include some large Monterrey firms.  Although the plan 
could work, so far Monterrey TEC has not yet established 
'investor clubs,' nor is it clear how much the Mexican investors 
will pay for a minority share of a new start-up.  Finally, 
Monterrey TEC and the PIIT cooperate in a 'soft landing' program 
to ease the placement of foreign companies in Nuevo Leon through 
incentives, office space, and assistance with new hires.  In 
June Motorola established an office in Nuevo Leon under the soft 
landing program, and will have an office with 100 employees 
located in the PIIT developing software for transmitting 
information and video on demand. 
 
 
 
¶6.  (SBU)  Plans to protect intellectual property rights -- a 
key prerequisite for true innovation -- are still in the 
preliminary stages.  Under an agreement with the state of Nuevo 
Leon, the University of Monterrey (UDEM) leads the project of 
protecting intellectual property rights at the PIIT.  UDEM has 
three planned phases: 1) promotion of the culture of legality 
and an appreciation of the importance of intellectual property 
rights protection; 2) advising small and medium enterprises how 
to protect their trademarks and other intellectual property and 
3) a center of legal studies to provide legal training on IPR 
issues.   UDEM has primarily focused on stage one, and has 
hosted a series of conferences to emphasize the social utility 
of IPR protection.  In 2007 UDEM began limited work on phase 
two, providing IPR advice to 14 small businesses in 2007, and 
depending on funding plans to counsel 28 additional firms in 
¶2008.  The Consulate is also actively promoting IPR protection 
through presentations and agreements with local governments.  In 
general, there is local interest, but IPR protection in Nuevo 
Leon still has a long road to travel since it just starting to 
address the educational aspect. 
 
 
 
Success Capturing Outsourced Technology Work 
 
 
 
¶7.  (U)  Nuevo Leon has made significant strides attracting high 
technology work, primarily outsourcing technology jobs by 
foreign companies.  A number of important technology firms have 
set up shop in Nuevo Leon in the last two years, including 
Indian software powerhouse Infosys (which will hire up to 1,300 
software engineers), Whirlpool (400 engineers), Lenovo ( 750 
employees) which will begin building personal computers in Nuevo 
Leon this summer for shipment throughout the Americas, and 
Accenture (1,000 employees) which will provide technological 
consulting services to the Americas.  Econoff toured Whirlpool's 
impressive state of the art facility, and learned that Whirlpool 
plans to increase its technology staff from 380 now to 480 by 
¶2012.  Whirlpool exports one billion dollars of home appliance 
goods each year.  Whirlpool hires from local Mexican 
universities, and six of their current employees have doctorates 
and 50 to 60 have master's degrees in technical fields such as 
mechanical, electrical and chemical engineering.  Whirlpool has 
worked with the local universities to develop two year seminars 
that produce 10 highly qualified engineers per year.  The 
 
MONTERREY 00000306  003.2 OF 004 
 
 
Whirlpool technology center has three tasks, developing new 
products (40%), improving existing products (40%) and quality 
control (20%).  As an example of its work on new products, 
Whirlpool developed a new icemaker in Monterrey. 
 
 
 
¶8.  (SBU)  Nuevo Leon has also had substantial success with 
homegrown technology consulting providers.  Local powerhouse 
Softtek has grown since its establishment in 1982 to provide 
technology services in over 20 countries and now employs 5,000 
professionals.  Moreover, Neoris, born as the technology arm of 
Monterrey giant Cemex, also provides top quality technology 
services rather than original research.  A former Conoff with 
prior experience in the software field interviewed numerous 
Softtek and Neoris engineers for work visas, and found that they 
were performing consulting services or putting the finishing 
touches on software projects conceived elsewhere (see reftel A). 
 Similarly, homegrown Dextra with 170 engineers provides 'near 
shore' technology consulting and applied solutions to clients 
such as Texas Instruments and Nokia, but does not innovate 
original software products. 
 
 
 
PIIT's emphasis on Applied Research 
 
 
 
¶9.  (SBU)  Despite all the talk of cutting edge software design, 
there are indications that PIIT has initially focused on 
technology transfer and applied research.  Econoff met with 
Ernesto Perez, head of Texas A& M's research facility at the 
PIIT.  Perez described his task as 'applied research' (which he 
preferred to consulting) and said that Texas A&M plans to 
transfer technology and research developed at Texas A&M to 
Mexican companies.  For example, Texas A&M has a number of 
experts in materials, and they could bring expertise and 
solutions to Mexican firms.  Perez also works with Center of 
Engineering and Industrial Design (Cidesi), the first 
operational research facility built in the PIIT, and operated in 
conjunction with the national Council of Science and Technology 
(Conacyt).  According to press materials, Cidesi will focus on 
technology transfer for the automotive, home appliance, steel, 
energy and food sectors, since they are the most developed in 
Nuevo Leon.  Perez commented that Cidesi's strength is 
implementing turn key solutions, or transferring technology 
developed elsewhere to Mexican firms.  Cidesi plans to move into 
pure research, and has done so in other Mexican states. 
However, in the PIIT, Cidesi has not yet taken the preliminary 
step of reaching an agreement with Texas A&M on profit sharing 
for potential patents. 
 
 
 
¶10.  (SBU)  Overall, the PIIT has advanced Nuevo Leon's 
technological expertise, although the emphasis is on advanced 
manufacturing rather than software design.  Carlos Mortera, 
general director of the Advanced Manufacturing Technology, a 
trade association of 350 U.S. manufacturing companies, thought 
that although some cutting edge research exists, Nuevo Leon's 
focus has been to integrate and designs systems for advance 
manufacturing.  Mortera agreed that Nuevo Leon has a good pool 
of highly educated engineers who can capably handle outsourced 
technology work, but he was skeptical of the high goals for the 
PIIT, and he thought that Nuevo Leon was correctly focusing on 
higher manufacturing and not software. 
 
 
 
¶11.  (SBU)  Comment.  There is no doubt that Nuevo Leon's 
strategy has been successful capturing attractive foreign 
investment to establish a high technology consulting and service 
outsourcing industry.  The high technology sector will also 
strengthen the higher value added manufacturing in Nuevo Leon by 
helping companies such as Whirlpool develop new products. 
However, it is not clear to what extent the foreign companies 
will transfer technological know-how to Nuevo Leon, or if Nuevo 
Leon will just be a low cost engineering center.  The big 
question remains if Nuevo Leon can move into true innovation of 
developing and patenting its own products, admittedly a long 
term goal.  The PIIT has been a signature project of Nuevo Leon 
Governor Gonzalez Paras, and it is impossible to know if the 
next Governor, who will take office in late 2009, will extend 
his full support.  Nuevo Leon also needs more focus on 
fundamental issues such as the financing for start-up companies 
 
MONTERREY 00000306  004.2 OF 004 
 
 
and reliable IPR protection to establish the foundation for true 
innovation.  End comment. 
WILLIAMSON