Maquiladoras Essay

A maquiladoras (also known as maquilas) is a corporation which operates under the Boarder Industrial Program (BIP) that began in 1965. Maquilas are approved by the Mexican Secretariat of Commerce and Industrial Department attracting corporations owned and operated by Mexican, American, and Asian companies. The BIP, a form of neoliberalism, allows up to 100 percent foreign involvement in terms of capital investment in and management of the companies, as well as duty-free imports of machinery, equipment, raw materials, parts, safety items, and administrative materials provided that the goods do not remain in Mexico permanently (Buitelaar and Pérez 2000). Narrowly defined, neoliberalism is used to describe specific policies marked by a change from “Keynesian welfarism” to a political agenda favoring the relatively autonomous operation of markets (Larner 2000). More broadly, neoliberalism signifies a rationality of governance that encompasses extending and disseminating market values to all institutions and social action (Brown 2003).

The maquilas that have the greatest number of employees are located in Ciudad Juárez, Tijuana, and Reynosa-Rio Bravo respectively (Wilson 1992). Although it remains heavily concentrated in this region, over the last two decades it has also increasingly spread throughout the country's interior in cities such as Chihuahua and Guadalajara-Zapopan (Maquiladora Service 2015). Maquiladoras became a means of providing employment and significant foreign-exchange earnings for Mexico’s developing economy (Cravey