Trade With Mexico Spurs New Courses on Campuses : Commerce: Universities are teaching U.S. executives how to do business under NAFTA. Educators foresee continued boom, even without pact.

Though the political going has been slow for the North American Free Trade Agreement, South Bay colleges and universities are moving fast to teach entrepreneurs how to do business south of the border.

Educators say business with Mexico is likely to boom even without the agreement, which would knock down trade barriers between the United States, Mexico and Canada if it is approved by Congress. So in the South Bay and elsewhere in the Los Angeles area, schools are serving up classes on everything from telephone service and banking regulations to language and cultural differences.

“I think we’d be doing this now without NAFTA,” said Gary R. Levine, associate dean of extended education at Cal State Dominguez Hills in Carson.

Among the colleges and universities planning or already offering such courses are Cal State Dominguez Hills, Harbor College, UCLA and Cal State Los Angeles.

Cal State Dominguez Hills is working with a Mexican university to create a center dedicated exclusively to United States-Mexico trade. The Mexican participant is Centro Ensenanza Tecnica y Superior (CETYS), a private university in Mexico with campuses in Mexicali, Tijuana and Ensenada.

The Center for California Border Cultural Development, as the project is called, will raise operating funds by charging businesses that use its services. Still in its early stages, the center does not yet have a director, nor a set curriculum. Surveys will be conducted on both sides of the border to determine the educational needs of businesses, Levine said.

The purpose of the center, Levine said,is to help American and Mexican businesses learn to operate under the NAFTA agreement. But even if the trade pact is rejected by Congress, he added, the center will still go forward.

“Whether NAFTA passes or not,” Levine said, “there has been an incredible growth in trade between Mexico and the United States and that is going to continue as a trend.”

Mexico now ranks second behind Canada as the United States’ largest trading partner. NAFTA, according to its architects, will spur U.S. economic growth by boosting that trade. But opponents, including Texas billionaire Ross Perot, have criticized the agreement as a potential drain on U.S. jobs, saying U.S. companies will shift operations to Mexico to take advantage of cheap labor.

At Harbor College in Wilmington, the educational extension department is now offering seminars on “Doing Business with Mexico: The New Era with NAFTA.” Only five people signed up for the seminar when it was first offered in March. But when the seminar was held most recently, in August, enrollment surpassed 20, said instructor Terrisa Nelson of San Pedro, an international trade specialist with Imperial Bank.

Adell Shay, director of Harbor’s extension department, said that, with much attention focused on NAFTA, she expects to attract even more participants for the next all-day seminar, scheduled for Oct. 30.

Last spring, UCLA’s extension department began offering two business classes that deal specifically with U.S.-Mexico trade. One is a 12-week course, the other a one-day seminar.

The instructor, Salvatore Osio, said UCLA has a hard time meeting demand for the classes. The 12-week course is limited to about 50 people. Hundreds of others are on the waiting list, said Osio, who is general counsel and managing director of two Century City firms that deal in investment in Mexico and technology transfer from the United States and Canada to Mexico.

At Cal State Los Angeles, educational extension service officials say they do not have a course on doing business in Mexico but expect to have one in the future. The university offered such a course more than a year ago but few people signed up, said Frances Chiles, director of extension and special sessions.

“We were too ahead of the curve on that,” Chiles said. “We will very likely take another look at those courses (now that NAFTA has heightened people’s interest).”

Courses on U.S.-Mexico trade, Nelson and Osio said, attract lawyers, accountants, small- to mid-size business owners, would-be entrepreneurs and representatives from large aerospace firms eager to introduce new technology to Mexico.

Nelson said she tries to present a balanced view of doing business in Mexico.

“It can take almost six months to get a telephone hookup,” she said. Joint ventures with Mexican business people are probably the fastest and easiest way to begin business in that country, she said.

Mexican government regulations also warrant attention, Nelson said. Employers in Mexico, for instance, may be asked to contribute to worker housing funds established by the Mexican government, she said.

And transportation networks outside the half a dozen large cities in Mexico range from poor to nonexistent, she added.

Osio agrees that Mexico must improve its infrastructure. That, he said, is why the trade barriers that are scheduled to come down in the first five years of NAFTA’s phase-in affect such products as gas-fueled equipment and machines, architectural services, industrial plant designs, computer equipment and software and telecommunications equipment.

“The opportunities in the way of telecommunications are going to be phenomenal,” Osio said, explaining that telephone communications in Mexico are extremely limited, largely because the country has not yet acquired digital technology. “All the industries in high tech are going to benefit.”