The capacity of the Mexican steel industry is not enough to meet the growing demand of the nation's automotive industry, a trade group said.
According to the country's auto parts association, INA, Mexico's specialty steel production for the local automotive industry has been inefficient and would need to increase up to three times to meet the booming cars segment.
Both the cars and auto parts industries demand specialty steel, such as flat steel sheets, Ramón Álvarez, president at INA, said.
"We demand a lot of metric tons [of steel] of different measures and thicknesses," he said, adding Mexico has been importing much specialty steel for one of the auto parts that is produced locally.
Most of the specialty steel Mexico needs for its automotive and auto parts industries come from Germany, China, Sweden and France. Álvarez said Mexico imports fabrics for the interior roof of the cars, which are purchased in countries like France.
"It's absurd [the fact] that Mexico assembles and makes the cover of cars, but needs to import the fabric or steel, [two] feedstocks that are not found in the country," he said. "We need more industry auto parts suppliers to come to Mexico," he said, adding the imports of fabric meet a 100 percent of the nation's demand for the product, despite the fact that Mexico does produce the product.