Guadalajara is to become Latin America’s media technology capital, having won the right to host the federal government’s Ciudad Creativa Digital program.
The Jalisco state capital, which is already considered “Mexico’s Silicone Valley,” saw off competition from 11 other Mexican cities, including finalists Monterrey, Puebla and Tijuana. President Felipe Calderon is expected to officially confirm the news when he attends the 2012 Annual Industrial Meeting in Guadalajara this week.
Ciudad Creativa Digital is the brainchild of ProMexico, a public body responsible for promoting foreign investment in Mexico, supported by the federal government and technology industry entrepreneurs.
Requiring a ten-billion-dollar investment over five to ten years, the project will unite efforts between industry, government and universities to create a cluster of technology companies devoted to developing video games, movies, multimedia and mobile applications.
With the aim of making Guadalajara the center for media and entertainment in Latin America, the Mexican government wants to attract companies such as Viacom, News Corporation, Walt Disney, Sony and Comcast/General Electric.Guadalajara must make at least 200 hectares of land available to be developed into a large industrial park. The complex will have room for the construction of movie sets, offices, public spaces, hotels and housing for 50,000 inhabitants and 10,000 media and IT professionals.
Guadalajara Mayor Aristoteles Sandoval Diaz believes Parque Morelos would make the ideal location for the project. The City Council still owns properties adjacent to the park after its plans to build the Pan American Village at the site were thwarted.
With the aim of renovating this run-down area of the city, former Mayor Alfonso Petersen spent nearly 30 million dollars buying up 40 homes and businesses in the area at over twice their market value. His project collapsed in September 2009 amid the credit crunch and opposition from local residents, politicians and businesses, but if the Ciudad Digital were to be built in the site then this considerable outlay would not have gone to waste.
Jalisco currently has three industrial parks specializing in software development: in Guadalajara, Ciudad Guzman and Chapala. The state is home to a growing number of graduates from engineering and design careers, looking to to utilize their skills in Jalisco’s electronics and telecommunications firms.
They will benefit from Ciudad Creativa Digital, which will require professionals in the areas of animation and digital design, film, digital communication, image and sound design, interactive design, digital systems engineering and interactive animation engineering.
The project will also boost Mexico’s media and entertainment sector, which achieved average annual growth of 4.5 percent from 2004 to 2008, twice the rate of growth than in the United States and Canada. The government expects annual growth to rise to 7.2 percent, with sales in the media and entertainment industry reaching 17.4 billion dollars by the end of next year
The domestic market for video games alone is already worth one billion dollars, with Mexico accounting for 50 percent of total video game sales in Latin America. There are currently about 1,500 companies in Mexico’s digital media industry, ranging from film production, post-production effects, software developers and video games.