NAFTA’s Flip Side: Mexican Firm Looks to Expand North

Most of the focus on business under NAFTA, the 5-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement, has been on U.S. corporations, jobs and money going south.

But sometimes it does flow north.

Optima Cotton Wear Inc., a major Mexican manufacturer and distributor of cotton underwear, sweats and polo shirts, has opened a U.S. subsidiary with headquarters and a warehouse in Anaheim.

Eusebio Gomez, president of Optima’s U.S. operation, said he has hired four full-time employees and could expand the staff to 10 if business goes according to plan. He said he also intends to open distribution facilities in Florida and Texas within the next year.

Optima is a subsidiary of Avante Textile S.A., one of Mexico’s largest textile firms, with four factories and more than 2,000 employees in Toluca, about 45 miles outside of Mexico City. The company has been a supplier to U.S. retailers J.C. Penney Co. and Kmart Corp. for several years, Gomez said.

Now, Optima wants to push into the U.S. market in a bigger way, reaching other retailers, as well as sports teams, event promoters and corporate clients with its line of plain, design-free cotton wear that can be customized by silk-screening or embroidering.

The company’s growth made the expansion to the U.S. desirable, and NAFTA made it possible, Gomez said. “With NAFTA, there are no more duties and quotas, so we can be very competitive in the United States,” he said.