Abstract
Since the early 1980s, free market policies promoting liberalisation, deregulation, and privatisation have rapidly gained terrain throughout most of Latin America, and they became part of the mainstream political discourse in the 1990s. The so-called ‘Washington Consensus’ prescribed, in a highly economistic way, the same structural adjustment recipes for all nations, regardless of their level of development, regime type, or cultural context. Many governments of developing countries now widely consider export-oriented industrialisation, driven by foreign investments, to be the most viable means of capturing the potential benefits of globalisation and a ‘fast-track’ out of poverty.
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Notes
- 1.
Given the marginal economic and demographic importance of the Desert-region, most statistics and analyses commonly consider this sub-region to be part of Coahuila’s Centre-region.
- 2.
Montemayor has occupied several prominent positions under the administration of President De la Madrid (e.g. Sub-secretary of Planning and Development (1982-1985), where he became closely acquainted with future president Salinas.
- 3.
One important conviction of the Montemayor administration was that (foreign) companies were often more easily convinced by fellow entrepreneurs. During his electoral campaign, Montemayor had already invited a large number of successful entrepreneurs from different sub-regions of Coahuila to establish contacts with potential foreign investors. Once in office, Montemayor invited several prominent local entrepreneurs into his cabinet, and encouraged the creation of private sector organisations for economic promotion in their respective sub-regions.
- 4.
According to cluster-theory, the value of geographic concentration of interconnected companies and associated institutions in one particular field, competing as well as co-operating, is greater than the sum of its parts (Porter 1998).
- 5.
Maquiladora is derived from the Spanish word ‘maquilar’, which historically referred to the milling of wheat into flour, for which the farmer would compensate the miller with a portion of the wheat. The modern meaning of the word evolved from its use to describe any partial activity in a manufacturing process, such as assembly or packaging carried out by someone other than the original manufacturer. Today, a maquiladora refers to a Mexican company operating under a special customs regime, established in the mid-1960s in the border areas of Mexico to absorb excess labour in the border areas and to encourage Mexican exports. Under the maquiladora-regime, (mostly foreign-owned) companies were allowed to temporarily import into Mexico on a duty free basis, machinery, equipment, materials, parts and components and other items needed for the assembly or manufacture of finished goods for subsequent export.
- 6.
Interview with José Antonio Murra Giacomán, Entrepreneur and former Secretary of Economic Promotion of Coahuila (1993-1999), Torreón, 5 June 2003.
- 7.
The industrial empire of the López del Bosque-family had started out in the late 1920s as a small commercial family business producing rudimentary aluminium and laminated articles for domestic use. Under the supportive environment of import substitution (1940-1980) (e.g. market protection, import tariffs, and low priced inputs), their operations expanded and diversified rapidly, employing more than 10,000 people in the late 1970s.
- 8.
The phase-out of the so-called Multi-Fiber Agreement in 2005, which eliminated quotas on many garment exports, and the prospect of the final elimination of tariffs on garments and textiles under NAFTA at the end of 2008 already resulted in a significant ‘reshuffling’ in the global garment value chain, which above all favoured China.
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de Bell, L. (2010). Looking Back on NAFTA’s Promises and Realities from a Local Perspective. The State of Coahuila, Mexico. In: Lindert, P., Verkoren, O. (eds) Decentralized Development in Latin America. GeoJournal Library, vol 97. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3739-8_11
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