Mexico: key issues and policies

During the past decade, the Mexican government has put into place a strong policy framework for the promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurship.   It has created a sequence of policy support running from the development of new entrepreneurs, micro-enterprises, SMEs and gazelles  to the stimulation of linkages between SMEs and so-called 'tractor' firms.  New co-ordination arrangements have also been created across government ministries and among national and state governments to increase the coherence and integration of their  programmes.  This publication takes stock of this progress and assesses the opportunities for further strengthening of the Mexican economy through SMEs and entrepreneurship.  It shows that the framework conditions are generally good in Mexico, and have improved in recent years thanks to reforms such as regulatory simplification, the expansion of the national loan guarantee programme, and the inclusion of the micro-enterprise sector as a target of the public support system.  At the same time, more can be done to shift entrepreneurs into the formal business sector and to develop more medium-sized companies able to innovate and trade internationally. There is also scope to improve the process of delivering the highest quality and most relevant policy support to beneficiary enterprises by simplifying the rules and operations of the SME Fund, developing the professional capacities of the staff and consultants who provide business development services and using available company-level data for the purposes of policy evaluation.