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Geography
At 1.97 million sq. km, Mexico is one of
the largest countries in Latin America. In
the north, it shares a 1,900 mile border
with the USA. In the south, it borders Guatemala
and Belize. The core of the country is a
high plateau edged by mountains except to
the north. Mexico City, the capital, is to
the south of this plateau at an altitude
of 2,240m. There are coastal plains between
the mountains, the Gulf of Mexico and the
Caribbean in the east, and California and
the Pacific to the west.
Demography
The total population of Mexico was estimated
to be 85 million in 1992. About half of the
population is under the age of 19. The population
growth rate has fallen from an average of
2.9% a year in 1970-80 to 1.9% a year in
1990-92. 72% of the population was estimated
to be urban in 1989. The population of the
metropolitan area of Mexico City was estimated
at 15 million in 1990. About half of the
population is thought to live below the poverty
line.
In 1990 only 12% of the population was illiterate
compared with 26% 20 years earlier. Until
recently Mexico had been catching up in educational
provision. In 1965 only 17% of the relevant
age group was enrolled in higher education.
This percentage rose from 4% to 16% in 1987.
In 1989 the workforce was estimated to number
some 30 million. This is a relatively small
proportion of the total population, reflecting
the fact that only about half of those in
the appropriate age group actually enters
the formal labour market. About 35% of the
working proportion are engaged by the services
sector, with transformation industries accounting
for 24% and trade for another 21%. 25% of
the workforce is involved in agriculture.
A substantial proportion of the economically
active population is engaged in the informal
economy.
History and Political Situation
Mexico gained its independence from Spain
in 1810, by means of a revolutionarycivil
war, although formal independence came only
in 1821. Lacking the stabilising influence
of a constitutional monarchy (under a Spanish
or European prince) that the independence
movement had implied, Mexico was subject
for more than fifty years to predatory militarism.
This included the war with the US, resulting
in the loss of California, New Mexico, Arizona
and Texas in 1845, a three year civil war
from 1857-60, and a brief period when the
French opportunistically imposed the Habsburg
Archduke Maximilian as Emperor of Mexico.
In 1867 he was rapidly overthrown by a liberal
movement once French troops were withdrawn.
The dictator, President Porfiro Diaz dominated
Mexico from 1876 until the revolution of
1910, a landmark in Mexican history, when
the constitutional opposition led by Francisco
Madero took up arms to oppose Diaz's imposition
of his own re-election, leading to six years
of civil war. Mexico's current constitution
was adopted in 1917 and is a more "social"
document than the previous narrowly political
liberal constitution. With a politically
fragmented Mexico, the Partido Nacional Revolucionario
was formed in 1929 to mediate between the
competing revolutionaries and to control
organised labour and the peasants fighting
for land reform.
Between 1934-40 President Lazaro Cardenas
carried out extensive land reforms, curbing
the threat of agrarian insurrection, and
expropriating foreign oil companies, thereby
gaining his reputation as a reforming radical.
He strengthened the Presidency by establishing
a sexennial change of office holders, by
organising the official party on functional
rather than regional lines, and by bringing
the military under presidential control.
His success, paradoxically, laid the foundation
for today's conservative regime. Mexico's
political system is dominated by the Partido
Revolutionario Institucional (formerly the
PRN), the largest single party. Although
opposition parties have been free to contest
elections they have had little chance of
winning in the past. The PRI has managed
to maintain control because of the popular
fear of another period of violence such as
the revolution of 1910-16 and has provided
a remarkably cohesive ruling elite that has
provided over fifty years of political stability
and forty years of rapid economic growth.
This political stability, however, under
a virtual one party system, has been under
threat in the last decade with growing social
and economic tension in the oil boom years
and the Presidency of Jose Lopez Portillo
in 1976-82. Portillo borrowed heavily against
future oil revenues, thus provoking the debt
crisis in 1982 and the nationalisation of
the banks. The process of structural economic
reform under President Miguel de la Madrid
had to be accelerated when the oil price
collapsed in 1986. This caused a high level
of social and political unrest and the strongest
internal fractions within the PRI's history.
The presidential and general elections held
on 6th July 1988 were a watershed in Mexico's
political history; they marked a serious
electoral contest between Mexico's second
strongest party, the newly formed Party of
the Democrat Revolution(PRD) led by Mr. Cauhtemoc
Cardenas and the PRI. De la Madrid selected
his planning minister, Carlos Salinas de
Gortari, as PRI's presidential candidate,
and Salinas won a very close election, the
result of which was disputed by the PRD.
The numerous elections held since President
Salinas came to office have demonstrated
that a part of the ruling PRI is strongly
opposed to relinquishing power and hence
the practice of electoral "alchemy"
has continued. At its 14th National Congress
in September 1990 the PRI did agree to changes.
The most important change agreed was that
candidates for public office would be democratically
elected by the party. The new rule does not
extend to presidential candidates, who will
be picked by a newly created consejo politico
(political council).
Economy
Between 1958 and 1970, Mexico achieved real
economic growth of about 6.8% per annum or
3.2% per annum on a per capita basis, with
an inflation rate of under 4%, a performance
which at face value was up to the standards
of today's South East Asian countries. In
addition ratios of public sector deficits
and public external debt to GDP were low
and stable, real interest rates were positive,
and the current account deficit never exceeded
3% of GDP. What went wrong?
While the oil price collapse in 1986 greatly
exacerbated the situation, the origins of
Mexico's recent economic problems lie in
the very uneven distribution of the fruits
of economic growth, and the continuing poverty
of a large section of the population. In
1970 President Echeverria sought to address
this by accelerating the rate of growth and
increasing public expenditure, on the theory
that the benefit would eventually trickle
down to the worst off. Structural changes
to the economic system which might have achieved
the same effect were ruled out by political
considerations in that they might have loosened
the PRI's system of control.
Echeverria was unfortunate to encounter a
world recession as he attempted to put his
strategy into place, so the policy was already
showing signs of strain by 1976 when President
Lopez Portillo decided to reinforce it. Indeed
Portillo appears to have ignored the lessons
and magnified the mistakes of Echeverria's
administration: by 1982, despite a huge rise
in the volume and value of exports, the policy
of defending a grossly over-valued peso had
led to capital flight on a massive scale,
and to the build-up in external debt that
remained a problem until the early years
of the Salinas administration.
As it was, President Miguel de la Madrid's
government from 1982 to 1988 was left to
pick up the pieces. With foreign reserves
virtually exhausted at the end of 1982, and
debt service taking a major proportion of
export earnings, a major surplus from non-oil
exports was required (in addition to further
borrowing) for the economy to show any growth
- still a political imperative given the
high rate of population growth. Between 1986
and 1988 however, economic growth was negligible,
with high rates of inflation, even though
manufactured exports, assisted by maquiladora
plants, expanded rapidly.
The December 1987 "Pacto de Solidaridad
Economica"(PSE) was agreed as part of
an anti-inflation plan between the Government,
labour unions and business organisations.
It froze prices, wages and the exchange rate
and allowed for swingeing tariff cuts. The
Pacto, which was extended twice in 1988,
reduced the annual inflation rate from 159%
in 1987 to 52% in 1988.
In May 1989, the Salinas government unveiled
its Plano Nacional de Desarrollo for 1989-94.
The plan had two principal economic goals:
annual GDP growth of 6% and inflation at
levels similar to those of Mexico's main
trading partners. The growth target was to
be achieved partly by boosting the share
of investment in GDP, with private investment
being encouraged by government moves to privatise
state companies, deregulate sectors such
as banking and transport and foster foreign
investment and capital repatriation. Although
growth in the first half of the plan period
exceeded the target, the average for the
second half is unlikely to be reached, partly
because inflation has proved harder to tame
than expected and partly because import growth
has been faster than anticipated.
Mexico's national stance has traditionally
been influenced to a very great extent by
its historical relationship with the USA.
An important agreement, the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was initialled
in October 1992. This is in line with the
government's policy for a closer relationship
with the USA in the hope of raising private
investment and attracting modern technology
to Mexico. The Clinton administration is
expected to honour the basic agreement reached
by the previous Bush administration, although
seeking side agreement on environmental and
U.S. job protection issues. Should this for
any reason not happen, the eventual outcome
would probably be to induce a peso devaluation
and slower than projected economic growth.
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