At least 30 companies in India have expressed interest in establishing themselves in Guadalajara’s Ciudad Creativa Digital, the high-tech industrial park geared toward the electronic entertainment industry planned in the heart of the downtown area.
So reported members of a recent mission to India by Guadalajara city hall trade officials, along with representatives from the Mexican Council of Foreign Commerce (Comce), who held meetings with the National Association of Software and Services Company (Nasscom) and International Institute of Information Technology, among others.
Announced in January 2012, the CCD could generate as many as 20,000 high-tech jobs over the next ten to 20 years. While local software companies are expected to fill the majority of the park’s space, the Mexican government also wants to attract international media giants. Guadalajara is home to a growing number of graduates from engineering and design careers who will be eager to fill these positions.
Guadalajara was selected as a digital creation hub among 11 other competing cities in Mexico, in a process assessed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Trade between Jalisco and India has increased substantially in the past five years. Tata, the huge Indian multinational conglomerate, set up a consultancy subsidiary in Guadalajara in 2007 and other Indian companies have followed suit. Jalisco Governor Aristoteles Sandoval is expected to head a trade mission to India in March.