Foreign direct investment and foreign trade: the state of Jalisco

Abstract

Since 1987, when the strategy of trade liberalization has been promoted in the country, with special emphasis on the change from the traditional model of accumulation based on import substitution supported by the administration of foreign trade and strong state interventionism in all areas of the country's economic life, to a model of open economy -which from the beginning was aimed at integration into the North American bloc- two important trends have been observed in foreign trade, The first is a notable growth in foreign trade, both in the United States and in the Asian bloc, and the second is a significant increase in the number of foreign trade transactions; on the one hand, a notable growth in both exports and imports and, on the other, a growing participation of transnational companies (maquiladoras) in both trade flows.
This unusual growth in foreign trade has become one of the "stars" of the system under the argument that this strategy has placed the country's economy among the ten largest and most dynamic in the world. This statement, of course valid, distracts attention from several transcendental questions, among others: what is the structure and linkage of the export sector, who commands it, what is the logic of trade integration that defines it? These questions are the central axis of this essay and are articulated around the following hypothesis, from which we organize the analysis.