Following Mexico's entry into the North America Free Trade Agreement with the US and Canada, North American business was important for the country’s textiles industry for almost two decades.

Over the past decade, however, Asian and Central American countries have not only become cheaper to operate from than Mexico, they have challenged the Mexicans on quality. China has replaced Mexico as the top supplier of textiles and apparel to the US, and continues to grow while Mexico's market share falls. In addition, Mexico was badly affected by the economic crisis. Now, with confidence returning, the Mexican textiles and garments sector is beginning to invest.

Colchas was founded in 1959 and has been exporting since 1990.

New Montex

The new Montex is a 320-cm wide stenter that is handling material widths between 1.6 and 3 m, and fabrics weighing between 95 and 115 gm/m2.

Mr Alcaraz says that, working on a 24-hour basis, with four days off per month for maintenance, the new machine is processing around 1 million metres per month.

"We have in effect doubled our production capacity, which now stands at 2 million metres," he says. "Our quality control we have always been happy with, as the original Montex has allowed us to work at optimum international quality levels."

"Now, by doubling our capacity, we are able to bring our production costs down. That means we can make our prices more competitive both for the local and export markets. Also we have more flexibility in production time, and can undertake short runs and long runs according to demand, without having to worry about disruptions to the output."

"So I would say that we are now on a very competitive footing."