According to Buie, Mexico's economic prospects dimmed in 2001 with China's admissionto the World Trade Organization. US manufacturers who for the previous 10 years had been moving factories to our southern neighbor now began shifting them from Mexico to China, where both real estate and labor costs were significantly lower. The subsequent rise of Vietnam, Korea, Malaysia and India only made the situations worse.

But rather than give in, says Buie, Mexican government and business leaders opted to "move up the value-added ladder" by investing in rising industries such as aerospace, automobiles and pharmaceuticals. They also promoted manufacture of higher-priced, customized products such as made-to-order electronics. As a result, Buie notes, by '06 maquiladoras had begun a full-fledged recovery and brought business back to and above previous levels. Today not only is Mexico the world's 14th largest economy, but in Buie's view it appears likely to achieve an even higher ranking in the not-too-distant future.

Nowhere is the resurgence more noticeable than in the auto industry. According to ProLogis,Mexico is now the world's 10th largest auto manufacturer and projected to rank fifth by 2011.Earlier this month, Mexican vice minister of the economy Heriberto Felix Guerra told an audience at the International Congress of the Automotive Industry in Mexico City that his government intends to double automotive output to $90 billion by 2015. The industry currently accounts for about 4% of the nation's economy. A major step, he said, would be to decrease the $17 billion spent annually on imported components by producing $10 billion of the components domestically.