At the time of publishing my last post about the dangers of living in Mexico, the drug wars and gun laws, I had no idea if such thoughts interest my readers. I’m experimenting with personal stories as part of content marketing strategies for professionals using blogs and online content.
Violence touches the lives of many everywhere. When current events strike close to home, you may feel, as I do, the need to speak up. Yet, life goes on, and for the most part our experience south of the border has been delightful for many reasons.
Some American’s aren’t aware of Mexico’s strengths so I thought I’d report them here. Here’s an update, as reported on Wikipedia:
The economy of Mexico is the 11th largest in the world. After rapid economic, social and technological growth beginning in the 1990s, Mexico is now both one of the world’s largest economies and one of the fastest growing economies in the world, with a stable growth rate of 7.6%.
In terms of US-Mexico trade, in 2009 Mexico had a positive trade surplus of $55 billion dollars against a negative deficit of $55 billion for the United States, showing that the NAFTA agreement has now began to work more for Mexico than the United States.
In August 2010 Mexico surpassed France to became the 9th largest holder of US debt, which some economists have predicted may give Mexico a position of economic leverage against the United States in international trade, especially when combined with Mexico’s now large trade surplus against the United States.
Mexico has a free market mixed economy, and had been established as an upper middle-income country since the mid-1980s but in 2009 Mexico surpassed the world bank’s high income economic threshold to become a high income country and is one of the five high-income countries of Latin America the others being Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Panama.
It is the 11th largest economy in the world as measured in gross domestic product in purchasing power parity. According to the latest information available from the International Monetary Fund, Mexico had the second-highest average income per capita in Latin America at $15,323 in January 2010.
Crime in Mexico
Total crimes per capita average 12 per 1,000 people in Mexico, ranking 39 in a survey of 60 countries. As of 2009 Mexico’s homicide rate varies from 10~14 per 100,000 inhabitants; the world average is 10.9 per 100,000 inhabitants. Drug-traffic and narco-related activities are a major concern in Mexico.
Current president Felipe Calderón made abating drug-trafficking one of the top priorities of his administration. In a very controversial move, Calderón deployed military personnel to cities where drug cartels operate. While this move has been criticized by the opposition parties and the National Human Rights Commission, its effects have been praised by the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs as having obtained “unprecedented results…” with “many important successes”.
Since President Felipe Calderón launched a crackdown against cartels in 2006 more than 28,000 alleged criminals have been killed. Of the total drug-related violence only 4% are innocent people, mostly by-passers and people trapped in between shootings; 90% accounts for criminals and 6% for military personnel and police officers.
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