Mexico’s market reforms: Progress and challenges
- Mexico’s market reforms have been one of the “most ambitious reform programmes in the world today”, according to an article in The Economist.
- Mexico shows that consistent growth, the quest for ongoing integration with the rest of the world and a determination to improve through entrepreneurship and better policies can be a solid basis for economic success.
- CDE executive director, Ann Bernstein, interviewed Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs, José Antonio Meade Kuribreña to get deeper insights into Mexico’s market reforms. South Africa should learn from Mexico’s market reforms if we are to achieve faster growth and deal with unemployment.
- Meade Kuribreña pointed out that because monetary policy in Mexico was already very loose and could not be loosened further, the Mexican government realised that the only way to find additional sources of growth was to undertake an aggressive programmes of structural reforms.
- Under President Enrique Peña Nieto, many significant reforms have been pushed through. These include making the labour market more flexible and more inclusive, especially for women and the youth; making the education system more transparent and merit-based by introducing teacher evaluations and performance tests; introducing fiscal reform in the shape of higher taxes; and reforming the telecommunications industry by creating a more powerful regulator, thus empowering the sectoral players to break up disrupt monopolies.