Mexico’s next top investment hubs
How Mexican states compete in investment-scarce times.
The first Trump term was a relative boon for investment in Mexico. Yearly foreign direct investment (FDI) back then was well above $2 billion dollars—until the pandemic. Now Trump is back, but money is scarce. On average, FDI has hovered at around $1.6 billion for the past couple of years. With less dosh to go around, Mexico’s 32 states must get creative to scoop up as much of that cash.
Yet, not all states are created equal. Inequality in Mexico is expressed across its regions too.
New York, the richest US state per capita, has a GDP per person 2.5 times larger than that of Mississippi, the poorest. Mexico City—technically not a state, but counts as one for most analyses—is almost 5 times wealthier per capita than the impoverished southern state of Chiapas.
So, the race to capture investment is therefore all the more desperate and diverse in Mexico. Broadly speaking though, the strategies can be split into three categories depending on what each state aims to do:
Reinvention: An old industrial hub seeking to take things in a new, more developmentally interesting direction.
Revving up: An industrial hub looking to lean into its existing strengths.
Recruiting: No industry to speak of; must attract investment from scratch.
Here’s the story of three Mexican states; each trying one of these approaches to attract investment in their own way.
