What appear to be the main reforms, market dynamics, orregional and global opportunitiesthat most contribute to Mexico's economic strength in the global economy?

As several of you indicate, the readings on Mexico are reminiscent of other countries who have transitioned from closed economies to more open ones. This is the common theme so far for our emerging economies and raises questions about what role earlier state assets play in future emergence.As a number of you noted, traditional neoliberal reforms such as privatization, open markets, and decreased state control improved Mexico's general macroeconomic performance, although overall growth and employment was relatively underwhelming.Other liberalization policies played a key role as well. As many of you pointed out, the privatization of the Mexican banking sector during 1991-96 and subsequent opening of the Mexican banking system to foreign investment gradually led to the establishment of a strong and stable, albeit risk-averse, banking system in Mexico.

Oil dependence plays a key role here. As some of you mentioned, in the 1980s Mexico was facing failing oil prices and an overvalued peso after a furious attempt to invest in the sector to take advantage of the high prices of the late 1970s. As many of you noted, during the mid-1980s Mexico set out a series of macroeconomic reforms aimed at radically shifting away from its development agenda which had been largely based on state-led industrialization and import substitution. Some of you suggested that these reforms were successful in bringing down inflation, reducing the deficit, and expanding non-oil export industries which were needed after a crash in oil prices during the 1980s. As a number of you added, the reason behind this idea was that they believed reducing state intervention would encourage investment that would, in turn, allow the economy to growth onto a path of sustained export-led expansion. The neoliberal ethos was certainly taking root.

As several of you point out, liberalization and resulting macroeconomic strategies implemented in the 1980s increased the overall amount of manufactured exports, many of which are of the high-tech variety. Some of you rightly indicated that export-based economic growth came to comprise a large portion of Mexico's GDP. The maquiladoras (export processing zones) allowed US manufacturers to set up shop in Mexico, exploiting its cheap labor and duty-free trade policies, meanwhile creating jobs for Mexicans. Here we can think about the parallels with China and the SEZs. Several of you indicated that because of the low cost of labor in Mexico it has become one of the world's leading producers and exporters of motor vehicles, despite the factthat it has no automakers of its own. Indeed, with the'maquiladoras', when limits on sourcing wereweakened, cheap foreign supplies were allowed to be imported, configured into whole parts and exported as complete components, a great boon for Mexico's economy. This was about supply chains before the supply chain explosion. And yet the Assembly model as compared to the full package model has a severe limiting impact on the growth of domestic suppliers and the broader economy as a whole. Can Mexico make the leap here to avoid the middle-income trap?

Many of you noted that "nearshoring" has allowed Mexico to become one of the U.S. biggest trading partners. As some suggest, Mexican-United States trade grew to reach levels of over $1 billion a day, making it the second-largest trading partner of the United States. Location, location, location, no? Asa number of you indicate,having an updated railway system gets goods to the United States cheaper, safer, and, faster which helped build confidence for foreign nations, the United States specifically, to do business in Mexico.

What seem to be the main challenges that appear to have impeded further growth?

Some of you indicated that Mexico's period of economic liberalization, signaled by the country's accession to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1986, was a difficult one for many of the country's textile and apparel manufacturers. As several noted, while Mexico has increased its exports, it has also had to increase its imports of needed components used in the production of the goods it exports, therefore cutting into profit marginsand diluting the overall growth of the economy. The essence and dilemma of supply chains at work -this is the Assembly model at work as Bair shows.

Indeed, some experts have argued thatMexico's reforms to open its markets to foreign competition and reduce state 'interventions' failed to sufficiently ensure robust economic growth.As most of you indicate, NAFTA contributed to a loss of comparative advantage in textiles, since U.S. clothing retailers are under no obligation to buy clothing sourced and produced under NAFTA rules in Mexico and have opted for cheaper markets in China.Some of you mentioned that the period of massive growth of Mexico's garment exports stopped six years into NAFTA with exports to the US falling by 20%between 2000-2004 as a result of loss of US import market share to China. This is the period in which China made great strides in going global and challenging other producers for market share. On the slow down, some of you suggest that for Mexico theimport penetration of the domestic market that was brought about by the elimination of trade barriers contributed to the economic crisis. The rise of China and other East Asian markets' manufacturing capabilities that were able to produce textiles for less while keeping the entire production processes within their borders were more globally competitive. If Mexico is to truly emerge it must do so in the shadow of China and other East Asian exporters.

Still, as some indicate, as of 2016, Mexico had 14 agreements with 46 countries. This ability to diversify their trading partners helped create less dependence on the United States as well as more foreign investors wanting to invest in Mexico.As several noted, some have predicted that Mexico is on pace to surpass Brazil as the largest economy in Latin America. Going forward, some suggest that with a new wave of industrialization that the Mexican economy will be able to transform itself into a high growth economy that is marked by the manufacturing linkages to domestic suppliers that is currently the "missing link" in its industry. Here we see the aspiration to transition from the Assembly model to Full Package production. As Bair notes there have been identified constraints on movement toward this goal in more than just a few production locations across Mexic