Mexican Raw-Materials Development: A Case Study

Abstract

For over 500 years, Mexico depended on foreign capital for its commercial capital-intensive raw materials development. Mexico still depends on international cooperation from foreign investors, managers, technologies, and markets. Cooperators include its northern, wealthy entrepreneurial U.S. and Canadian neighbors, its historical Spanish colonial masters, and more recently, more modest cooperators from European, Japanese and Chinese organizations. Raw materials were developed for local use, export, political and social reasons, resource independence, as well as investment. For the past 90 years, political and social reasons led Mexico to vacillate between resource nationalization and privatization. Sweeping government reforms in 2015 allow for private and international investment in its energy sector. This encourages more international cooperation.