Guanajuato

Thesis

October 11, 2026 · 9 min

Twenty million: the North American regions the size of the Bajío-Occidente

The Bajío-Occidente is home to 22.1 million people. North America has only a handful of regions that size: greater Mexico City, the Texas Triangle, Southern California, New York, Florida and the Québec City–Windsor Corridor, plus Guatemala and Hispaniola. With the same number of people, the Texas Triangle produces six times more per person.

Sustainable development

October 10, 2026 · 8 min

Agenda 2030 in the Bajío–Centro-Occidente: four years to go

Eleven of fifteen years on, poverty fell in all six states, but formal employment did not move, lack of health access rose everywhere and 91 of 146 aquifers have no water available. Distributed generation doubled. One table with a source and year for every figure.

Market

October 9, 2026 · 5 min

The Puerta Logística del Bajío hub, Guanajuato: a rail node still waiting for works

52.41 ha next to Honda's plant in Celaya, with access to Ferromex and CPKC and MXN 2,500 million committed for phase 1. Guanajuato Puerto Interior now points to a construction start in Q2 2027, not Q1 2026.

Thesis

October 9, 2026 · 8 min

The Michoacán hub and Guanajuato: one corridor

Parque Industrial Bajío is in Michoacán, but its labour market, its basin and its rail outlet face Guanajuato: Acámbaro is 46 km away and Celaya 111 km along the same CPKC line. With the Celaya hub, it forms a pair on a single line. No government has framed it that way.

Sustainable development

October 7, 2026 · 9 min

The Bajío states and the 2030 Agenda

Five states, five ways to put the SDGs into practice. Three charge per tonne of CO₂, at different prices. Two have a net-zero emissions target. Only one has an energy ministry. Water is the weak point of all five. And there is no regional table.

Infrastructure

September 29, 2026 · 5 min

Guanajuato's stake in the passenger train: stations, money and industry

Guanajuato does not pay for the train; the federal government does. Guanajuato's role is to be where the train stops: 11 planned stations across three lines. What the state gains depends on what gets built around them.

Infrastructure

September 28, 2026 · 6 min

The new Mexico City–Querétaro–Irapuato train: the logic and the money

The federal government is building 340 km of new double-track passenger railway from Mexico City to Irapuato for about MXN 191 billion, and plans another 303 km to Guadalajara for MXN 127.5 billion. What changed since 2014, and what to check before relying on the numbers.

Market

September 27, 2026 · 7 min

Bajío industrial parks: occupancy and the pace of construction in 2026

Vacancy in the Bajío rose from 3–4% to a 4–6% range, and construction opened the year at a record pace before cooling. This is not deterioration but normalisation after the nearshoring peak. What sets a park apart is no longer free space, but the power it can deliver.

History

September 27, 2026 · 12 min

Who settled the Bajío: 2,600 years told from its cities

The Bajío has filled up and emptied out more than once. Preclassic farmers settled it first; around the year 1000 they abandoned it; silver and wheat repopulated it in the 16th century; by 1803 it was the densest region of New Spain. Today León, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí and Aguascalientes are home to more than five million people, and the order among them is shifting.

Infrastructure

September 20, 2026 · 5 min

The Bajío runs on petroleum fuels: where they come from and what they are used for

Almost everything produced and moved along the León–Querétaro corridor depends on gasoline, diesel or LPG. A refinery in the middle of the region does not guarantee supply, and the traceability of every litre is now a compliance issue.

Thesis

September 19, 2026 · 6 min

The Bajío is heating up: temperature, power demand and what Mexico's hottest cities teach

León has already passed 40 °C and Mexico's grid set a new demand record in July 2026. The Bajío is not Mexicali, but it has less subsidy, less margin and a peak at eight in the evening.

Thesis

September 16, 2026 · 5 min

The Bajío's air: three problems, three maps

Salamanca breathes sulphur dioxide, Celaya breathes particulates, and ozone is rising across the whole corridor. It is not one air-quality problem, and each one has its own investment.

History

September 15, 2026 · 12 min

It started in León: four cycles of Mexico's electricity grid

Mexico's first electrical installation was a 1.8 kW plant built for a textile mill's own use in Guanajuato, in 1879. One hundred and forty-seven years later, the main opening in the current law is called self-consumption. History does not repeat. The physical constraint does.

History

September 6, 2026 · 9 min

Germany in the Bajío: two centuries of technique, half a century of capital

At the September 2 Summit, the Guanajuato government counted nearly 70 German projects and some USD 4 billion. Almost all of it postdates 1973. Before that, Germany had spent two centuries in the Bajío supplying something else: knowledge.

Events

August 31, 2026 · 8 min

Summit 2026: what German industry and the Bajío put on the table

On 2 September, the BDI, COPARMEX Nacional, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the State of Guanajuato opened a Germany–Mexico industrial agenda in Silao. This is the full record of the day: programme, speakers, panels, and the 61-supplier Catalogue.

Environment

July 21, 2026 · 5 min

Cars and the air we breathe in the Bajío

León had 69 days with particulates above the standard in 2024, and Celaya reached a purple alert in 2025. Cars do not explain everything, but they dominate carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and ozone.

Thesis

July 7, 2026 · 5 min

The Laja River: water, energy and farming in northern Guanajuato

The Upper Laja River aquifer has 62 hm³ a year more water under concession than it recharges. In northern Guanajuato, a project that produces energy but uses more water is not viable. Five agri-energy models and the rules for doing them right.

History

June 30, 2026 · 7 min

The Manila Galleon, silver and Guanajuato: the first global supply chain ran through the Bajío

For 250 years, silver from Guanajuato's veins crossed the Pacific on the Manila Galleon and ended up paying taxes in Ming China. The Bajío has been the first link in a global chain before. The question then is the question now: where does the value stay?

Market

June 25, 2026 · 5 min

15 versus 19: the tariff that separates a Japanese car made in Japan from one made in the Bajío

Since September 2025 a Japanese car built in Japan pays 15% to enter the United States. The same kind of car built in the Bajío pays on average about 19%. The gap already shows in 2025 output and exports.

Market

June 18, 2026 · 5 min

150 Japanese companies: the Bajío supply base

Behind every Japanese assembly plant in the Bajío stand dozens of suppliers. Guanajuato counts about 150 Japanese companies. The base is changing its mix: labour-intensive wire harnesses leave, motor cores and steel arrive.

Market

June 11, 2026 · 5 min

The Bajío's Japanese automakers by the numbers

In 2025 Japanese brands built one in three light vehicles made in Mexico. Six Bajío plants produced 1.1 million units, 28% of the national total. Two of them already run above 90% of capacity.

History

June 4, 2026 · 5 min

Forty years of Japan in the Bajío: from Aguascalientes to Apaseo el Grande

In March 2026 Nissan closed CIVAC, its first plant in Mexico, and moved the output to Aguascalientes. The closure sums up forty years: the centre of gravity of Japan's auto industry in Mexico has moved to the Bajío.

Thesis

March 24, 2026 · 7 min

Where the Bajío lives in the United States

Texas is the first destination for migrants from all four Bajío states: it holds about 44% of their consular ID cards, double its share among Mexicans as a whole. San Luis Potosí sends two out of three there; Aguascalientes spreads across Texas, California, Illinois, Colorado and Oklahoma.

Environment

March 10, 2026 · 5 min

Four states, three models: how to prepare a project an environmental fund will actually finance

Environmental money exists in three of the four Bajío states, but each fund rewards a different applicant and project. A comparison, which fund for what, and seven steps to a fundable project.

History

February 3, 2026 · 5 min

The Mexican Central Railway: the line that made the Bajío

In March 1884 the Mexican Central tied Mexico City to the border at El Paso along the old Camino Real. Irapuato became a junction, and the station towns of that era are today's industrial cities.

Environment

January 13, 2026 · 5 min

FOAM: how Guanajuato funds its municipalities' environmental projects

Since 2000, part of what drivers pay for their emissions-test sticker in Guanajuato has funded garbage trucks, emissions inventories and municipal solar panels. This is how FOAM works.