Mexico continues to be one of the world's leading manufacturing countries, considering the large amount of IMMEX companies in the border states of Mexico.

In September, Bernd Martens took over Audi purchasing as a member of the Audi management board. Martens, 47, gave Automotive News' German-language sibling publication, Automobilwoche, a look at how he and his team explored sourcing in Mexico.

In six years, the planned factory in San Jose Chiapa will buy 90 percent of its components from local sources. So far no other Audi location has done that.

Q: You recently invited 120 suppliers to a workshop. When will you award contracts?

A: As a first step, we have mainly invited suppliers producing parts with very high investments, including press plants and paint facilities. We have to award these contracts first. The bid procedure will determine which of these companies is accepted. By the end of the year we want to have suppliers for the particularly costly components on board.

Tijuana, Baja California, MEXICO. Barry Avenue Plating's newest subsidiary and Tijuana facility, BAP Aerospace de Mexico, announced it received the first two of three Nadcap accreditations for Chemical Processing (CP) and Aerospace Quality Standards (AQS). BAP is the first company in Tijuana, Baja California to receive this accreditation and the fifth in Mexico as a whole.

BAP's newest facility in Tijuana is located just minutes south of San Diego, California and is an extension of their long-established services operating out of Los Angeles. Founded in 1947, BAP has an established reputation to go along with their already longtime certified Los Angeles facility. With their newest facility in Tijuana, BAP aims to serve every production need of their clients in nearshore Mexico.

China doesn't want your manufacturing dollars anymore. It's set out on a five-year plan to shift its economy away from an export model to one based on consumption.

That's good -- because the business world may not want China anymore, either. Wages in the world's second-largest economy have been climbing an average of 12% a year. The 25% increase in the value of the country's currency in the past decade has made exports even more expensive.

In fact, Harold Sirkin of The Boston Consulting Group says that by 2015, net labor costs for manufacturing could be the same in China as in the United States. And that's before you add in the cost of shipping goods halfway around the world.