Invest in Mexico: A Digital Platform
In late 2021, the Mexican Ministry of Economy announced the creation of Invest in Mexico, a digital platform. During the inauguration, a government official mentioned that good international practices recommend countries to have single windows for investment matters and that Mexico is presenting its “Digital Single Window” with Invest in Mexico.
In this post, I explore Invest in Mexico and whether Mexico now has a single window for investment matters.
Emilio Arteaga
Lawyer
Mr. Emilio Arteaga is the director of Doing Business Mexico and a trade and business lawyer.
The Announcement of Invest in Mexico
Accordingly, this platform was developed within the Ministry of Economy and in coordination with other relevant units that are involved in the government procedures when investing. After analyzing the website, Invest in Mexico revolves around three pillars, an introduction as to Choose Mexico, Foreign Investment Statistics, and Government Procedures.
Choose Mexico
Choose Mexico presents key and summarized information of Mexico. For instance, the Mexican Ministry of Economy mentions that Mexico has a strategic location and privileged access to international markets, among other matters.
At the bottom of this section, the user may download the “Handbook of Procedures for Investing in Mexico”.
Foreign Investment Statistics
Finding information on government websites is not always easy, and foreign investment statistics were not the exception. Before this platform, one had to find the relevant website of the Ministry of Economy and scroll down to the foreign direct investment statistics section. The information provided in Excel consists of statistics from a period of time (1998 to the present), and one could find the following information:
- Type of FDI flows;
- Origin of FDI;
- Destination of FDI in Mexican State;
By the way, the information reported in such spreadsheets is that being used in our foreign investment page of Doing Business Mexico.
With this new website, the user can easily select the relevant period of time and fields, allowing the person to make “tailor-made” selections of the information. If you are interested in Mexico’s foreign investment statistics, I encourage you to use this platform.
Government Procedures
The government procedure section is quite the jewel of the Invest in Mexico platform, which in fact takes the user to a different domain called “mexico.e-regulations.org”. Now, this website is written in Spanish, but the user may select an online translation version as noted in the following image.
Accordingly, the Ministry of Economy, through this website, makes “transparent the processes that foreign investors must apply in Mexico, the sequence of steps, responsible authorities, results to be obtained, requirements, costs, response times and legal framework.”
In essence, the website actively reports information about the existing government procedures on migration, incorporation of companies, purchase of real estate, trademarks and patents, social security (IMMS, acronym in Spanish of the Mexican Social Security Institute), construction, and foreign investment. When selecting a topic, the website reports the possible scenarios or questions. For instance, creating a company allows you to select the following options:
- foreign natural person (i.e. foreign individual),
- a foreign legal person (i.e. foreign legal entity),
- Mexican society (i.e. Mexican Legal Entity),
- acquisition of shares of an already established company.
Once selected the option, the website will provide a second follow-up option that the user will determine in order to eventually reach the correct “government procedure.” As one can note, the e-translations are not perfect. Also, identifying the correct option is not a simple task for a foreigner.
The Complete Process in Government Procedures
Fortunately, the website offers the user to see “the complete process.” Under this section, the Ministry reports a summary of the relevant laws and/or restrictions. The user may then see all government procedures under such topic and click the procedure he/she is interested in, which will take him/her to a site that reports the necessary steps. The user may click each step and a summary, the required documents, and the legal justification will appear.
Can I contact someone in Invest in Mexico?
Invest in Mexico offers the possibility to reach out and contact someone for counsel. However there seems to be an issue with the website since the contact link is not that simple (at least in January 2022). Hopefully, the Ministry of Economy corrects this in the near future. The problem is that if the visitor is looking at the government procedure site and clicks the contact option, an irrelevant pop-up appears.
If someone needs to contact a Mexican government official, the user must be on the “landing” website, which is this one: https://www.economia.gob.mx/invest-in-mx/ and, then click either the “contact us” or the “planning to invest”.
Is Invest in Mexico a Single Window?
For the time being, Invest in Mexico is not a “single window”, as generally understood in international forums, since foreign individuals or companies cannot carry out the government procedures online. Needless to say, government officials promised that Invest in Mexico is a platform that will continue to improve.
Invest in Mexico is better understood as a digital platform of the Mexican government that presents –to a certain extent– “intuitive” and “friendly” information about Mexico’s government procedures so that a potential investor can identify government procedures and their steps. In short, Invest in Mexico aims to make transparent the legal process to invest and do business in Mexico.
During the inauguration of the platform, another government officer mentioned that “the single window will not substitute the “agents”, probably investors will continue using agents, but the information is now transparent.”(minute 30 of the youtube video) The officer used the word “gestores”, which normally means a person who organizes papers and carries out steps on behalf of someone, they are rarely known to be advisors. It comes with no surprise these comments since this administration, especially the Tax Authority, prefers to eliminate the middle-man or counsel, such as accounting and legal firms. Paradoxically, Invest in Mexico may prove to be a useful tool for business advisors since lawyers may guide investors to the relevant procedure in the website so that a person can fully grasp the complexities of some steps.
To a certain extent, I completely agree with the government officials in the sense that Invest in Mexico makes the process more transparent. However, I would add that foreign investors will continue to use business advisors, say, lawyers, accountants, and “agents” to invest in Mexico. In my opinion, a person who is unfamiliar with the regulatory business framework in Mexico will have trouble understanding and navigating the relevant government procedures in Invest in Mexico. Plus, investors should always consult with legal and tax counsel since there are always tax and legal implications and other options may be available.
Furthermore, users that reach out to the Ministry of Economy for help may find themselves waiting for an answer for a couple of days. Normally, the business advisors in the private sector, like myself, should respond to queries within minutes or hours.