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Panama
was still limited to 4,500-TEUers and when
its expanded version was ready next year,
it could only take a 13,000-TEUer if it
was loaded and shaped the right way. Meanwhile,
19,000-TEUers were in service and 20,000-TEUers
were being ordered, making once mighty panamaxes
look like canoes.
Fashions
change as do circumstances. And this changed
tended to put Lazaro Cardenas and its rival
Manzanillo with their 13 to 16 metre depths
alongside back in the picture with its capacity
to supply enormous metropolitan populations
of two OECD countries as well as move cargo
north at least as cheaply as can be done
from Los Angeles and Long Beach.
The
growth of "nearshoring" in Mexico
is likely to become more of a factor too
if not marred by the leftist instincts of
Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party,
which before the Fox reforms made workers
virtually unsackable, That stemmed the flow
of US and Canadian investment in the 1990s
after NAFTA came into force.
And
there are signs of countervailing forces
at work in Mexico]. While Arab dominated
OPEC ponders ways to prop up crude prices,
Mexico is opening its state-controlled oil
industry to foreign producers. It is outlining
terms of its first auction of oil blocks
to outside bidders for the first time since
1938.
It
appears that the 76-year state monopoly
is ending as Exxon Mobil, Chevron and BHP
Billiton share research with state-owned
Petroleos Mexicanos as the government seeks
$50 billion in private investment mostly
in undeveloped deepwater offshore fields
and onshore shale by 2018.
Mexico
is the second largest economy in Latin America,
and has third largest container throughput
in the region. President Enrique Pena Nieto
by passing an energy law opening the sector
to foreign investments, expects it will
boost construction, shipping and offshore
development in the next two years.
Mexico's
$1.3 trillion economy has become increasingly
oriented toward manufacturing in the 20
years since NAFTA. Per capita income is
roughly one-third that of the US. Income
distribution is unequal, indicating an abundance
of affordable labour.
Mexico
has become the United States' second-largest
export market and third-largest source of
imports. It has free trade agreements with
over 50 countries including Guatemala, Honduras,
El Salvador, the European Free Trade Area,
and Japan - putting more than 90 per cent
of trade under free trade agreements.
In
2012, Mexico formally joined the Trans-Pacific
Partnership negotiations and formed the
Pacific Alliance with Peru, Colombia and
Chile. Mexico's current government has emphasised
economic reforms during its first year in
office, passing education, energy, financial,
fiscal and telecommunications reform legislation.
The three-party "Pact for Mexico"
reform agenda aims to improve competitiveness
and economic growth across the Mexican economy.
As
a full-fledged participant in what has been
called the "new normal" in global
economics, in which we face the reality
of not expecting a return China's galloping
GDP, allowing other players in, such as
Mexico. The process assumes exports and
imports will become more balanced. It is
also reasonable to expect that as the US
economy picks up, Mexico's demands for protectionist
measures will subside as it enjoys greater
prosperity - even if that means wages become
a little less affordable for the Li &
Fungs of the world.
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