If the elimination of daylight saving time is approved, as is expected, the export industry will have a minor impact, according to Fernando Ruiz Huarte, general director of the Mexican Business Council for Foreign Trade, Investment and Technology (Comce).

Mexico‘s government has proposed the elimination of daylight saving time, in effect since 1996, which means that mornings would be brighter and afternoons darker.

For now, the initiative is in the process of being approved by the Mexican Congress.

Daylight saving time obliges Mexicans to move forward one hour on the night of April 2 and then reverse that change on October 30 at two o’clock in the morning.

«Perhaps what may affect us is that we may have some additional costs due to the time difference between Mexico and the United States; but it will be minimal, because Mexico’s main export to the United States is in the border area and that border area will change the time according to the United States,» said Ruiz Huarte.

To be precise, daylight saving time has three exceptions: Quintana Roo and Sonora, which keep their schedules unchanged due to tourist and economic reasons; and the 33 municipalities of the northern border strip, with a schedule synchronized to the southern areas of the United States.

Ruiz Huarte stated that the entire maquiladora and manufacturing industry in the border area from Tijuana, Baja California, to Matamoros, Tamaulipas, which represents around 60% of Mexico’s exports, would not be affected.

Comce

«Companies that are in the interior of the Bajío area, which has had a very important increase in exports, or the Puebla area, it does cause them some kind of logistical problem, but other than that, I think there will be no major impact,» said Ruiz Huarte.

To take into account as a historical context: Comce’s predecessor emerged in the 1950s, under the name of Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales (Cemai).

Then, in 1999, Cemai changed its name to Consejo Empresarial Mexicano de Comercio Exterior, Inversión y Tecnología, A.C., with the merger of Conacex, with the purpose of creating an organization dedicated to the promotion of foreign trade.