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Country Snapshot - Mexico  

HighlightsRankingsQuantitative DataLegislationAnalytical WorkProject Portfolio
  • Latin America & Caribbean
  • Upper middle income
  • 108,523,000 (2011)
  • 9,330
Mexico Flag
Below are select highlights for the data included in the profile.

  1. Mexico’s overall Doing Business 2011 is higher this year, reflecting improvements for five indicators. In 2011, the country launched an online one-stop shop for initiating business registration. The reform allowed the country to jump 23 spots in the sub-ranking for the Starting a Business Indicator.
  2. As reported by Economist Intelligence Unit (2011), industrial production in Mexico grew more slowly in April as a drop in mining offset robust manufacturing and construction output. Seasonally-adjusted production increased by 2.8% year on year, the National Statistics Institute said on June 13th, slowing from 3.3% growth in March. Manufacturing surged by 5.2% year on year, with construction up by 3.4%. Mining production fell by 3.2%. month on month, industrial production fell by 0.1%.
  3. According to the latest Enterprise Surveys (2006), the top three constraints to financing in Mexico include the Practices of the Informal Sector, Corruption and Tax Rates. Among the firms surveyed, 23.59% of them expect to pay informal payments to public officials to get things done, compared to 21.21% for the region.
  4. Mexico’s economic freedom score is 67.8, making its economy the 48th freest out of 183 countries in the 2011 Index. Its score is 0.5 point worse than last year, reflecting declines in freedom from corruption and fiscal freedom. Mexico is ranked 3rd out of three countries in the North America region, but its score is well above the world average.

Subnational Doing Business Report

Doing Business in Mexico 2009 compares business regulations across 31 Mexican states and the Federal District in 4 key areas: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, registering property, and enforcing contracts. Doing Business in Mexico 2009 is the third subnational report for the country but the first carried out by a local think tank, the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness—with the Foreign Investment Advisory Service in an advisory role. The report’s findings suggest that Mexican cities can improve business regulation by adopting good practices already in place elsewhere in the country.

Main Findings

  • The report found that 28 out of 31 cities implemented a total of 40 reforms in the areas measured by Doing Business in Mexico.
  • Reforms produced tangible results, such as reducing the average time to open a business from 36 to 24 days and to register a property from 47 to 38 days, respectively.
  • Time to enforce a contract across the cities varied significantly despite identical federal legislation: 248 days in Zacatecas and 560 days in Quintana Roo.

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