Elements for an industrial and technological policy in the Mexican automotive sector

Abstract

Since the import substitution industrialization model was launched in the early 1940s, the automotive sector has always had great relevance within manufacturing activities; although the efforts to make this industry more intensive in technology have been truncated, so that nowadays in the framework of industrial activities, maquila, assembly and, where appropriate, industrial production with few or no forward and backward multiplier effects. This is a consequence of the generalized deindustrialization process and the widening of the technological gap, with respect to the main economies in which the automotive sector is one of the most important. So, to begin closing this historical trajectory, it is essential to design and implement a new active automotive industrial policy, in which transversal and selective strategies come together, but which at all times considers the challenge of overcoming the technological lag.