Good Example Of Economy Of Latin America Essay

Currently the world's attention is drawn to the rapid development of "newly industrialized countries" of Asia, Africa and Latin America. In this paper, I want to highlight the processes that have taken place and are taking place in the new industrial country in Latin America - Mexico. Despite the significant gap in socio-economic development of the countries of Asia and Africa, Latin American states have a number of common features with them.
Firstly, the vast majority of them are characterized by a low level of development of the productive forces. In addition, although the modern era is characterized by distributing scientific and technological revolution, in countries such as Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvador, Bolivia, Ecuador, its influence is not felt. The industrial revolution taking place in these countries is very slow. Most of the population is concentrated in the village and occupied with primitive manual labor.
Second, widespread, especially in agriculture, are pre-capitalist relations. Not only in the name of the country, but also in such as Mexico and Brazil, where capitalism in the last two decades is developing very rapidly, in the village of common semi-feudal relations. Third, the main industry of the Latin American region are strongly controlled by foreign capital. Indeed, in Latin America, there are concentrated:

• About 20% of the total amount of nonferrous metal ores;

• More than 80% of niobium;
• More than 40% of beryllium, copper and silver;
• More than 30% of antimony and graphite;
• More than 20% of iron ore, bauxite, tin and sulfur of world reserves.
However, not all Latin American countries in the past two decades were characterized by significant progress. Despite the common historical destiny, the similarity of socio-economic conditions of countries in the region, among them there are considerable differences. With the exception of Cuba, building socialism, and Nicaragua, carrying out deep progressive conversion, all Latin American countries are developing along capitalist lines. Of these three countries - Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, significantly outperformed other countries in terms of industrial development, on the maturity of capitalist relations. Progressive changes in the sectoral structure of the economy of these countries have contributed to further consolidation of their position in the regional industrial production (Sánchez and Luna 120).
United Mexican States is one of the largest countries in Latin America. Its area is 1958, 2 thousand square kilometers. On the territory among the countries of the Western Hemisphere, Mexico ranked fifth. In the north, it borders with the United States of America, in the south - with Guatemala and Belize. Mexico is the country that is mountainous, more than 50% of its territory is located above 1,000 meters above sea level. The only plain - Yucatan Peninsula, narrow lowland stretch and along ocean coasts.
Water resources are very unevenly distributed, which together with other factors makes it difficult for agriculture. Many parts of Mexico are in need of irrigation. The country is rich in natural resources: oil, gas, mercury, silver, zinc, lead, uranium and others. Proven oil reserves are about 9.8 billion tons, natural gas - 1826 billion cubic meters.
Mexico, the world's largest silver producer, is ranked seventh in the world in the production of zinc, sulfur and salt, fourth - lead and mercury. By the population, Mexico is the third country in the Western Hemisphere. In 1983 population numbered more than 70 million people. Official language is Spanish, but in many remote areas have wide distribution Indian languages.
The capital - Mexico City – is home to 12.7 million people. Together with the nearby cities, Mexico constitutes one of the largest urban agglomerations of the world, which is home to 20% of the population. It is the largest industrial center in Latin America, it and other cities of the Valley of Mexico constitutes about 60% of the country's industrial potential.
Mexico is a federal republic consisting of 31 states and the Federal District. Supreme power is vested in the President, who is the head of government. Legislative power belongs to the National Congress, consisting of the Chamber of Deputies, elected for a term of three years, and the Senate, in which elected two senators from each state for a period of six years.
Mexico is the most developed country in Latin America. For the production of GDP and industrial production, it ranks second in the region, second only by this criteria to Brazil. GDP Growth Rate in the country averaged 0.64 Percent from 1993 until 2014, reaching the highest level of 2.90 Percent in the first quarter of 1996 and the lowest of -6.60 Percent in the first quarter of 2009 (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Mexico GDP Growth rate.
Although Mexico's GDP has grown in the last ten years, it still lags behind the income per capita of the developed capitalist countries and in Latin America ranks third after Argentina and Venezuela.
Entering a new phase of industrial development, Mexico has used financial and material support from developed states, primarily the United States. In doing this, specialization and cooperation based on the gradual integration of economic structures of Mexico's economy developed capitalist countries (Coll 16). These factors have left a deep imprint on the economic development of Mexico, giving it contradictory results. Describing the industry as a whole, it should be noted that 80. 7% of all manufacturing enterprises are small productions belonging to national or private capital and using national technology. They are in the ground and provide employment.
Government policy encourages medium and small-scale industry, which created the Guarantee Fund to stimulate medium and small industries. In respect to these enterprises, there is carried out preferential tax policies. The plans of the industrial development of the country pays great attention to small and middle industry. Investments in the economy are provided mainly by increasing public investment. Public investment in the economy and social infrastructure have grown quite rapidly in the recent years.
Foreign trade in Mexico has always attached great importance. It is one of the main sources of foreign exchange, which acquired the equipment necessary for the development of industry and raw materials. A characteristic feature of foreign trade for a long time is a chronic excess of imports over exports. The structure of imports shows that the country buys mainly machinery, raw materials for industry, in some years, food and consumer goods. Aside US, major importer of Mexican products are Spain, Japan, Germany, Brazil and others.
Now the Mexican model is in crisis, as the economic successes of the country have been extremely controversial. In particular, the economic growth in Mexico is accompanied by increased penetration of foreign capital. The dominant position (60%) belongs to foreign capital of the US, although in recent years significantly increased the influx of capital from Western Europe and Japan. Along with this, Mexico is increasingly resorting to foreign loans and credits, although export revenues do not cover financial obligations.
Figure 2. Mexico External Debt.

Works Cited

Coll, Jorge Alberto Charles. Inequality and growth in the context of the Mexican economy: Does inequality matter for growth?. No. 331. 2014.
Sánchez, Gustavo Vargas, and Albino Luna. "Slow growth in the Mexican economy." Journal of Post Keynesian Economics 37.1 (2014): 115-134.