Border Trade Show a Big Draw : Business: Attendance and exhibitors on Otay Mesa are up 50% with prospect of barriers falling.

Maybe it’s the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement. Or the economic tough times that have forced companies to broaden their marketing horizons. Whatever the reasons, attendance and exhibitors at Thursday’s Mexport trade show on Otay Mesa were 50% higher than last year.

For the last four years, the annual Mexport show has given San Diego businesses an opportunity to pitch their wares and services to businesses doing business in Mexico. The show is sponsored by the San Diego Economic Development Corp. to provide local companies with trade opportunities.

In the past, the show has been geared mainly to the maquiladora industry and the companies that manage and supply it. Maquiladoras are foreign-owned plants operated in Mexico that take advantage of low-cost labor to assemble products destined principally for the U.S. market.

But, with the proposed trade bill and the lowering of tariff barriers that would result from it, more businesses see Mexico not only as a place to make products but as a market in which to sell them.

Thursday’s show held at Otay Commerce Center, a stone’s throw from the U.S.-Mexico border, set records with 230 companies operating booths, up 50% from last year’s total. Attendance was expected to reach 2,000, about 35% more than last year, EDC President Dan Pegg said.

“Why would you want a booth here? Well, there are a lot of potential customers walking by,” Pegg said, pointing to exhibitors ranging from banking and telecommunications firms, environmental consultants to packaging, lumber and electronics suppliers.

Tim Bennett, a Washington consultant who has been hired by the Mexican government to help negotiate the trade agreement, told a Mexport gathering that NAFTA passage could come as early as May, if approved by Congress and the Mexican and Canadian governments.

That was good news to first-time exhibitor Rey Guerrero, who is chief executive of Associated Transportation Services of San Diego and Tijuana. He said that, if the trade bill passes, it will be the “pot of gold at the end of the rainbow” for firms such as his.

Phased in over a 10-year period, NAFTA would do away with virtually all barriers that now keep U.S. and Mexican truckers from penetrating each other’s markets. Guerrero’s binational firm was at Mexport to tout consultation services to trucking firms on how to navigate the muddy waters of California and Mexican trucking laws.

Also looking forward to NAFTA to boost business was Sharon Hublit, a saleswoman at the San Diego office of AT&T.; The agreement will ultimately cause a lowering of the extremely high long distance telephone rates in Mexico as more U.S. businesses begin operating in Mexico, Hublit predicted. That will make telephone service more attractive to Hublit’s clients, she said.

Also exhibiting for the first time, but for a different reason, was Harry Rhee of U.S. Foam Co. of Carlsbad, manufacturer of packaging foam for manufacturers of electronics and other products. Rhee said that the economic slowdown is forcing a lot of companies, including his own, to step up their marketing efforts.

Pressing the flesh at Mexport, Rhee said, is a way of getting his company before a broader spectrum of potential customers. “I think there will be a lot more people here next year, after NAFTA is passed,” Rhee said.

Dan Herlihy, director of operations at Emcon Associates, a San Diego environmental consulting firm, said NAFTA will be a good thing for his company only if it results in tougher enforcement of environmental laws.

That kind of enforcement would force U.S. firms in Mexico to retain him for advice on how to dispose of hazardous wastes.

Tony Ramirez, vice president of the Chula Vista-based maquiladora consulting firm Made in Mexico, was among those who thought that Mexport show was benefiting from its own “evolution” as as a successful trade show and by the growing legitimacy of Americans’ doing business in Mexico.

That legitimacy has been greatly enhanced by the proposed trade agreement, he said.

“There is a growing recognition that there are tremendous business opportunities opening up between San Diego and Tijuana,” Ramirez said.

After making a speech at Mexport, negotiator Bennett said many of the NAFTA questions he had fielded during the day revolved around how “rules of origin” will apply.

NAFTA’s rules of origin will stipulate that tariff barriers will remain in place for goods sold in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade zone that contain components made in Asia, Europe or elsewhere outside the trade zone, Bennett said.