National private groups in Mexico, 1987-1993

In the author's view, an important result of the economic reforms begun in Mexico in 1983, especially in the period after 1987, is that national private groups have assumed a leading place in the new economic model. These are not only traditional groups which were restructured in the course of those reforms, but also new groups which were formed or developed in that period and which have come to have decisive weight in the national economy. This new leading role of Mexican national private groups is the result of the strategies adopted by the groups themselves in order to adapt to the conditions of competition created by an open, deregulated economy as well as of the government strategy of privatizing public enterprises, which fulfilled the aim of transferring to national private capital the economic power previously possessed by the sector of public enterprises, while at the same time seeking to secure a balanced distribution of that power among those national private groups and to promote the development of new groups. Section I of the article examines the performance of the national private groups in the period in question, in order to show their leading economic position. Section It analyses the general features of the privatization of financial and non-financial public enterprises, as well as the various effects they had on those groups, with emphasis on the restructuring aspects of them which underlie the privatization strategy. Finally, section III gives a summary description of the main national private groups in 1993, though this is naturally of a provisional nature in view of the changes taking place both in the national economy and in the groups themselves.