Cross-border trade and Perceptions:Friend or foe?

摘要

Agribusiness leaders in the border states of Arizona and Sonora feel strongly that trade will be more important to their future business than it is at present. Each state believes that there is a potential or expanding market available. Little support was found for the opinion that each other's state serves as a business competitor. Integration, complementarity, and regional specialization have allowed cross-border agribusiness firms to become more competitive. Opportunities for risk reduction are felt to exist through cross-border expansion. The highest ranked items for increasing the economic vitality of agribusiness in the region are streamlining border crossing formalities for products, unifying grades and standards, improving Sonora's transportation and communication infrastructure, developing better financing strategies/legal agreements, and forming a bilingual regional agricultural agency to disseminate information regarding current regulations specific to agriculture. This agency may also help facilitate capital and trade flows by providing a voluntary certified trading license.