There's money to be made in international commerce. But it's hard for small businesses to find clients or suppliers in a foreign country, and to navigate the import-export and tax systems.
To help, the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has become the first chamber in Arizona to open a satellite office in Mexico. It also has signed a trade agreement with Sonoran public officials.
"We know that our members have cut back, laid off, they're very lean," said Lea Marquez Peterson, president and CEO of the Tucson Hispanic Chamber, which has about 750 members. "But they're all looking for additional revenue streams."
The chamber's new office is in Hermosillo, Sonora, inside the tourism office Vamos a Tucson. Chamber members traveled to Mexico last week for the ribbon cutting and met with other chambers that might collaborate with them.
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The trade agreement was signed in Tucson about a month ago by the Hispanic Chamber and the mayors of the Sonoran cities of Imuris, Magdalena de Kino and Santa Ana, and by the economic development director of Caborca.
The officials agreed to refer business to each other and participate in events and workshops on both sides of the border.
The plan is for the Tucson Hispanic Chamber and other chambers to exchange their membership databases to promote matchmaking on both sides.
"It's important that we get to know what they have over there, and that they get to know what we can offer," Luis Alfredo Bernal Ainza, mayor of Santa Ana, said in Spanish.
The Hispanic Chamber already has been promoting binational trade on a smaller scale.
For example, Jan O'Brien, co-owner of Arizona Designs Kitchens and Baths in Tucson, was able to save her client in Mexico a sales tax, thanks to the group.
Her client, a general contractor in Mexico, was building a home and was interested in buying cabinets and countertops from her. But the client wanted to have an exempt status for the retail sales tax, just like contractors have here.
"We did not know it was available over there," O'Brien said.
Her client ended up with more purchasing power, and she ended up with more confidence in business dealings in Mexico.
From the other side of the border, Jesus Alan Madrid Lizarraga has new business prospects here thanks to a networking and product-sharing luncheon, held in Spanish, that the chamber hosted in Tucson.
Lizarraga's family operates a meat-processing venture in Caborca called Productos del Rancho. Its carne seca, machaca and chorizo are sold in a store there and distributed to commercial chains in Sonora. The family wants to break into the Arizona market.
Tucson carnicerias tasted his foods. "I met people that were interested in my products," Lizarraga said in Spanish.
Now he's looking into the requirements for exporting.
By the numbers
Mexican visitors spent $976 million in Pima County in fiscal year 2007-08, according to the most recent numbers compiled by the University of Arizona for the Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau.
For more info
Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, 4420 E. Speedway No. 101; 620-0005.
Contact reporter Natalia Lopera at nlopera@azstarnet.com or 807-8029.