Selling baby wipes amid drug wars: Kimberly Clark on business in Mexico

By Caitlin Keating, reporter

Claudio Gonzalez Laporte

FORTUNE -- The United States has always had a complicated relationship with Mexico. We receive about 80% of the country's exports, we debate over how to handle Mexican immigrants who make up an increasingly important part of our workforce, and we travel to our southern neighbor's pristine beaches for winter vacations.

It became more complicated last month, when the Department of State issued a travel warning about the security situation in Mexico. For decades, the country has been mired in crime, but the drug war has intensified there in the past year. Millions of U.S citizens safely visit Mexico each year, but the U.S. government is sounding alarms on the number of Americans murdered in Mexico recently: 120 U.S. visitors were killed there in 2011, up from 35 in 2007.

So what is it like to do business there today? Claudio X. Gonzalez Laporte is the Chairman of Kimberly-Clark de Mexico, a subsidiary of Kimberly Clark (KMB) that's headquartered in Mexico City. The company sells everything from toiletries to hand towels and infant care.

Gonzalez spoke with Fortune about the state of affairs in Mexico, the country's dependency on the United States, and how the drug war is affecting local businesses.

How is Kimberly Clark de Mexico performing in this economy?

Mexico has continued to perform very well despite the economic situation in Europe. We haven't gotten out final numbers for 2011, but I'm quite certain that we will end up growing around 4%, or a little better than 4%, so things have held together quite nicely despite the European turmoil that was affecting everyone including the United States. We are planning to have another year in 2012 where we can have growth around 4%, if the U.S. economy continues to give the good signals that it has also started with in 2012.

How dependent are companies in your country on the United States?

The country as a whole has a certain dependency on the U.S. but we are working very hard to bring it down. As long as Mexico has such a high dependency on its exports to the U.S., anything that happens in the U.S. will also affect our company. If the economy in the U.S. is doing poorly, Mexico's economy would also grow less. This would create fewer jobs and lead to less purchasing power for our products.

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Selling baby wipes amid drug wars: Kimberly Clark on business in Mexico