foreign manufacturing plants to the Mexico-US border. It also began to be a hub for the national industrial market, because El Bajío naturally sits between the preexisting industrial zones of Mexico's three main cities: Mexico City to the south, Guadalajara to the west and Monterrey to the north. The main investor was Japan, although the United States, South Korea, Germany, France, Italy and Spain also have important presence in the area. It is estimated that, by 2016, Asian foreign direct investment totaled over 1.5 billion dollars. Guanajuato (León-Silao and Celaya) hosts General Motors, Volkswagen, Pirelli, Honda, Toyota, Mazda, Denso, Mitsubishi, and Sumitomo plants. Aguascalientes hosts Nissan, Renault, Mercedes, Yazaki and Jatco plants. Querétaro hosts Mitsubishi, Samsung and Bombardier plants. San Luis Potosí hosts Yazaki. The State of Mexico (Cuautitlán Izcalli) hosts a Ford plant. Bajío Shimbun is a monthly, Japanese-language newspaper founded in June 2015. The first Japanese consulate in Mexico was inaugurated in January 2016 in León and will serve the Bajío region. As of 2017 there were 1143 Japanese, 294 United-Statesians and 200 Spanish legal immigrants in Aguascalientes according to the immigration authorities, although the total number of immigrants is thought to be much higher. In 2015, authorities reported a total of 6230 legally-registered immigrants in the state of Querétaro, most of them from the United States, Spain, Colombia, South Korea, Germany, Cuba, France, Canada, Japan and Venezuela. Now archetypal in the development plans of the local governments, these business partnerships with multinational corporations have been criticized for exploiting Mexico's weak labor laws and low wages, lacking long-term potential of benefiting the local population and for outsourcing jobs out of their countries of origin in the developed world. Gallery See also Bajío dry forests Geography of Mexico References Further reading Brading, D.A. Haciendas and Ranchos in the Mexican Bajío: Léon, 1700-1860. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1978. Murphy, Michael A. Irrigation in the Bajío Region of Colonial Mexico. Boulder: Westview Press 1986. Ocaranza Sainz, Ignacio. Estudio geográfico y económico del Bajío, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, 1963 Sánchez Rodríguez, Martín, "Mexico's Breadbasket: Agriculture and the Environment in the Bajío" in Christopher R. Boyer, A Land Between Waters: Environmental Histories of Modern Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press 2012, pp.50-72. Wright Carr, David Charles (1999). La conquista del Bajío y los orígenes de San Miguel de Allende, Universidad del Valle de México-Fondo de Cultura Económica, México. External links http://www.cuentame.inegi.org.mx/territorio/rev/index.html http://www.inegi.org.mx/sistemas/mexicocifras/default.aspx?e=11&i=i