U.S. Ambassador Anthony Wayne and U.S. IT Companies Discuss U.S.-Mexican Trade in ICT Industry

U.S. Ambassador Anthony Wayne and U.S. IT Companies Discuss U.S.-Mexican Trade in ICT Industry

Mexico City, February 2, 2012 – The U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Anthony Wayne met with a delegation of 12 U.S. IT Companies to discuss the current state of the Information & Communications Technologies (ICT) industry in Mexico and to explore potential ways the Embassy can assist these companies in providing goods and services to Mexico.

“The use of ICT has become an integral part of the Mexican economy, from industry to government all the way to the consumer,” Ambassador Wayne said.  “Broadband connectivity has transformed the way business is conducted and people communicate in Mexico.  Investment by U.S. IT companies has generated thousands of Mexican jobs and created enormous export opportunities for both U.S. and Mexican companies.  U.S. and Mexico could build a more competitive region through greater technology integration and coordination on interoperability standards.”

Ambassador Wayne and participants discussed the promotion of innovation and economic competitiveness through the Agenda Digital Nacional (AND), Mexico’s  digital economy roadmap.  The AND focuses on empowering society and fostering e-commerce, developing the Mexican ICT industry, establishing data privacy policies and increasing access to IT resources, creating an e-government, and using telecommunications to increase industrial productivity.

Other areas of discussion included data privacy, spectrum regulation and allocation, and infrastructure investments needed to develop the ITC market and in particular cloud computing market in Mexico. Participants also discussed the enabling factor IT has on the rest of society, including human capital development, innovation, education and healthcare.

Representatives from Cisco Systems, Inc., Google Inc., International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation, Intel Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Motorola, Inc., Nextel Communications, Opentec, Oracle Corporation, Qualcomm, Symantec Corporation, and Unisys Corporation participated in the discussion.