TCNA – Mexico was created to serve Tile Council of North America’s Mexican members, as well as U.S. and Canadian members doing business in Mexico. Here are just some of the many recent developments with which TCNA – Mexico has been involved to benefit the North American tile industry:

Standards development work

TCNA – Mexico holds Mexico’s vote in ISO TC 189. It also developed a ceramic tile installation standard adopted and published by CONOCER (Mexico’s Government Standardization and Certification Council) in Feb. 2009. This installation standard, which will be used to certify installers, consists of three elements: surface preparation, setting of tile, and grouting.

Literature for Mexico

TCNA – Mexico recently developed an installer instructive, based on the Mexican installation standard. This is in addition to the Spanish-language literature TCNA-Mexico already provides for architects and consumers.

Government Relations

TCNA – Mexico worked to eliminate illegal tile imports by alerting governmental authorities to imports using the wrong HS code and by training Mexican custom agents to recognize mislabeled tile. This training took place in 18 border locations, which covered 99% of imports. A training video was also created for training additional border agents. This training cut the amount of falsely-labeled tile (from 2005 to 2008) by 99%!

Installation Training School

To allow for even more installers to be trained, TCNA – Mexico recently doubled the size of its training center in Monterrey and now offers both day and nighttime classes. Construction of a training center in Mexico City has also recently been completed. The curriculum for the two centers will be based on the new installation standard that is being developed.