LEON, Mexico — Every day at noon, the 75 workers at the Mares Manufacturing factory step away from the assembly line where they make shoes, bow their heads and chant their common hope.
"Senor, gracias por nuestro trabajo," they pray, thanking God for their jobs. "Y conservalo para nosotros," asking God to keep the jobs alive.
It is more than the poor economy that prompts the call for divine intervention. Shoe workers in Guanajuato state will need all the help they can get when China enters the World Trade Organization, probably by the end of the year, and gets freer access to world markets.
The unleashing of China's export-oriented manufacturers is a fearsome prospect for Third World countries that have depended on low wages to give them a competitive advantage. In the last decade, China has become a world leader in the production of footwear, textiles, apparel and light electronics and is the third-largest manufacturer of information technology goods, said Nicholas Lardy, a China economic expert at the Washington-based Brookings Institution.
Dominating the world's shoe industry is clearly one of China's goals, and Mexico is in the line of fire. "Modernize or be erased," warned Mario Abedrop Davila, president of the China business committee of the Mexican Council on Foreign Trade, a trade group.
The China challenge assumes different forms around the globe. In India, it is felt by the producers of batteries; in Taiwan, computer hardware. Manufacturers of apparel and electronic components in Southeast Asia have suffered as Japan, the region's leading foreign investor, has shifted its subcontracting to China.
"India has much the same problem as Mexico--it's been flooded with high-quality Chinese goods," Lardy said. "China can outproduce the Indians."
'A Sensible Alternative to China'
The nightmare already has come true for Humberto Bugarin, manager of Armamex, a U.S.-owned plant in Mexicali that produces door hardware sold in the U.S. under the Weslock label. Even though Bugarin couldn't match China's prices, he offered U.S. customers a closer working relationship and shorter turnaround time.
"Every [tooling] die we take away from China, we throw a party," the 52-year-old plant manager said two months ago. "We're saying to [our customers], 'We're a sensible alternative to China. We may be a little bit more expensive, but we're at your backdoor.' "
