Introduction

From a long-term perspective, the Mexican economy has achieved important and structural changes since 1982. From that year to date, the Mexican economy has deeply modified its macroeconomic priorities to manage economic policy instruments, the correlation between its economic determinants to growth and its external linkages to face the emerging regional and global markets. From then to now, the Mexican economy has increasingly abandoned its international low profile to develop into a more active player in the open markets; however, it must be said, not always with successful results.

In 1994, in the middle of a deep political crisis and just a few months before a new economic recession, Mexico had reached at least three significant goals related to its external sector: i) to modify the composition of its exports; ii) to start with Canada and the US the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed in 1992; and, iii) to join, as a formal member, the Organization for the Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Following a severe social and political turmoil, 1994 ended with the sadly known ‘December error’ and recession ensued. The Mexican economy suffered its deepest recession with higher inflation in 1995: the annual percent change of the GDP was -6.2 and the annual per cent change of the consumer prices at the end of the year reached 52 points.