🖼️ Economic Reframe

Welcome to Latinometrics. We bring you Latin American insights and trends through concise, thought-provoking data visualizations.

Twenty-five years ago Mexico stepped into the new century brimming with promise. NAFTA had just wiped away most tariff walls, foreign banks were buying into a once-shaken financial system, and mobile phones were still a luxury. GDP grew 5%, but few imagined how the economic map would be redrawn by 2025.

Today two sectors dominate that transformation. Finance and Insurance has soared by +442%, riding a wave of foreign ownership, fintech adoption, and a 2014 reform that opened credit lines to millions. Mass Media & Information—driven mainly by telecom—has increased by 425% after the 2013-14 competition overhaul slashed mobile data prices by more than 70%.

Mexico is now a country where nearly 9 in 10 citizens go online daily, and mobile payments zip from Oaxaca markets to Monterrey boardrooms.

Manufacturing has upgraded. Cheap T-shirts and low-end furniture retreated, yet high-value “transport equipment” and “other manufacturing” surged. Automakers, aerospace giants, and appliance makers reshaped the northern border and the Bajío into the world’s 7th-largest vehicle platform and a top-10 aerospace cluster. Nearshoring is amplifying this trend: by 2024, Mexico had surpassed China to become the United States’ largest goods supplier, fueling record demand for industrial parks from Tijuana to Querétaro.

Business support and waste-management services eroded, hit by automation and reclassification, while oil-linked refining dimmed after crude output peaked in 2004.

With a young workforce, locked-in USMCA access, and a fresh wave of AI-ready factories, the next quarter-century hinges on whether Mexico can innovate fast enough for its 130M connected consumers and keep the south from falling further behind.

Comment of the Week 🗣️

A friend of Latinometrics, Alex González Ormerod, declares our bank plot chart his favorite. Thank you Alex! In case you don’t know, he publishes an insightful publication on Mexico’s policy and economy.

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