Mexico Opens the Door to Medical Technology, but Not to Its Own Production

Mexico is seeking to attract clinical research and move up the value chain, but it is doing so from a dependent productive structure that limits its ambition. This is why the Mexican Economy Secretary is allowing the import of COFEPRIS-authorized equipment for clinical research without requiring compliance certificates for the Official Mexican Standards at customs, to address the bottleneck in the entry of technology that the country does not yet produce at a sufficient scale.

The government estimates that, with this measure, foreign investment in clinical research could increase by up to 50%, implying around $150 million in additional annual inflows and raising the market value to approximately $450 million per year.

For a sector that accounts for roughly 1.5% of manufacturing GDP and about 0.3% of national GDP, greater dynamism translates into pressure on its labor base—which already exceeds 145,000 formal jobs—and on the productive infrastructure needed to sustain it.

SiiLA data shows that this infrastructure already occupies more than half a million square meters of industrial space in Mexico, with operations directly linked to the development, manufacturing, or integration of electronic medical devices, and an additional 400,000 square meters in complementary activities. Together, these operations include more than 50 companies and account for around 1% of the country’s industrial tenants, with sustained expansion (7% annually) over the past three years.

Growth, however, does not resolve the sector’s core limitation. According to the Economy Secretary, Mexico maintains a trade surplus in instruments and apparatus used in medical sciences, but that balance does not translate into productive autonomy. In the 2006–2026 monthly series, exports exceed imports for most of the period; even so, imports represent between 36% and 45% of export value, in a structural relationship in which both variables move almost simultaneously, and external growth depends on the ability to import inputs, meaning that Mexico exports not only what it produces, but also what it manages to assemble.

This dependence is not abstract. Around 60% of the medical devices consumed in the country are imported, and in their manufacturing, more than 70% of inputs may come from abroad, according to INEGI and AMID. The same logic extends to trade: more than 93% of the sector’s exports are directed to the United States, while roughly 63% of imported inputs come from that same country.

Under this framework, the sector’s growth does not translate into autonomous industrial expansion, but into demand for space that functions as nodes within global supply chains, where occupancy follows the flow of external inputs. This pattern concentrates demand in strategic locations such as Tijuana, Monterrey, and Ciudad Juárez, with formats oriented toward logistical efficiency over the development of domestic productive capabilities.

Details on these dynamics can be found in SiiLA Market Analytics or by contacting contacto@siila.com.mx.