Mexico auto industry says no Trump hit to investment yet

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's auto industry has not yet registered any postponements to planned investment since the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president, two leading business associations said on Thursday.

Trump stirred fears of a loss of investment during the presidential campaign by threatening to tear up a joint trade deal and impose tariffs on Mexican-made goods, complaining the country was "killing" the United States on trade.

The New York real estate tycoon condemned U.S. manufacturers for investing in Mexico during the campaign, accusing companies like Ford and General Motors of being unpatriotic.

So far, however, Trump's threats have not hit the business in Mexico, two of the biggest industry lobbies said.

"I do not know of any investments or plants that have been halted," Eduardo Solis, the president of automakers industry group AMIA told a news conference in Mexico City. "I don't know of any company that wants to leave."

Oscar Albin, head of the auto parts group INA, agreed.

"Of the plans that have already been set, fortunately nobody has delayed or canceled them," he said. "We have not seen any curb on the arrival of new auto parts makers or on the expansion of plants already here in Mexico."

Another target of Trump's criticism, United Technologies Corp's (NYSE: UTX) unit Carrier, said this week it would keep jobs at its air conditioner plant in Indianapolis that the company had previously said would move to Mexico.

(Reporting by Joanna Zuckerman Bernstein; Additional reporting by Enrique Andres Pretel; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Andrew Hay)

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