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FROM CIA WORLD FACTBOOK

Estados Unidos Mexicanos
Capital:  México, Districto Federal
Mexico consists of 31 states and one Federal District, the capital.
Independence: September 16, 1810
President and Chief of Staff: Vicente Fox Quesada

Currency: Mexican Peso (MXN)
Exchange Rate: Mexican pesos per US dollar - 10.789 (2003), 9.656 (2002), 9.3423 (2001), 9.4556 (2000), 9.5604 (1999)

Population: 104,959,594 (July 2004)
Nationality: Mexican(s)
Religions: nominally Roman Catholic 89%, Protestant 6%, other 5%
Languages: Spanish, various Mayan dialects, Nahuatl, and other regional indigenous languages
Literacy: definition: age 15 and over can read and write: 92%

Historical Background: The site of advanced Amerindian civilizations, Mexico came under Spanish rule for three centuries before achieving independence early in the 19th century. A devaluation of the peso in late 1994 threw Mexico into economic turmoil, triggering the worst recession in over half a century. The nation continues to make an impressive recovery. Ongoing economic and social concerns include low real wages, underemployment for a large segment of the population, inequitable income distribution, and few advancement opportunities for the largely Amerindian population in the impoverished southern states. Elections held in July 2000 marked the first time since the 1910 Mexican Revolution that the opposition defeated the party in government, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Vicente FOX of the National Action Party (PAN) was sworn in on 1 December 2000 as the first chief executive elected in free and fair elections.

Geography:  In North America with a total area of 1,972,550 sq km (1,225,685 sq mi) bordering the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, between Belize and Guatemala to the south and the US and North Pacific Ocean to the north.  With a total of 9,330 km (5,797 mi) of coastline.  Geography Note: One of the world’s major grain crops, corn, is though to have originated in Mexico
Climate varies from tropical to desert
Terrain: High rugged desert mountains to low coastal plains to high plateaus to desert
Natural Hazards: tsunamis along the Pacific coast, volcanoes and destructive earthquakes in the center and south, and hurricanes on the Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean coasts

Environmental Current Issues: scarcity of hazardous waste disposal facilities; rural to urban migration; natural fresh water resources scarce and polluted in north, inaccessible and poor quality in center and extreme southeast; raw sewage and industrial effluents polluting rivers in urban areas; deforestation; widespread erosion; desertification; deteriorating agricultural lands; serious air and water pollution in the national capital and urban centers along US-Mexico border; land subsidence in Valley of Mexico caused by groundwater depletion note: the government considers the lack of clean water and deforestation national security issues

Economic Overview:  Mexico has a free market economy with a mixture of modern and outmoded industry and agriculture, increasingly dominated by the private sector. Recent administrations have expanded competition in seaports, railroads, telecommunications, electricity generation, natural gas distribution, and airports. Per capita income is one-fourth that of the US; income distribution remains highly unequal. Trade with the US and Canada has tripled since the implementation of NAFTA in 1994. Real GDP growth was a weak -0.3% in 2001, 0.9% in 2002, and 1.2% in 2003, with the US slowdown the principal cause. Mexico implemented free trade agreements with Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and the European Free Trade Area in 2001, putting more than 90% of trade under free trade agreements. The government is cognizant of the need to upgrade infrastructure, modernize the tax system and labor laws, and provide incentives to invest in the energy sector, but progress is slow.

GDP Per Capita: $9,000
Population below the poverty line: 40%
Unemployment Rate: 3.3% with about 25% underemployment
Agricultural Products: corn, wheat, soybeans, rice, beans, cotton, coffee, fruit, tomatoes; beef, poultry, dairy products; wood products
Industries: food and beverages, tobacco, chemicals, iron and steel, petroleum, mining, textiles, clothing, motor vehicles, consumer durables, tourism
Export Commodities: manufactured goods, oil and oil products, silver, fruits, vegetables, coffee, cotton
Export Partners: US, Canada, Germany

International Disputes: prolonged drought, population growth, and outmoded practices and infrastructure in the border region have strained water-sharing arrangements with the US; nationals from Central America slip into Mexico seeking work or transit into the US; undocumented Mexican nationals continue to enter the United States
Illicit Drugs: illicit cultivation of opium poppy (cultivation in 2001 - 4,400 hectares; potential heroin production - 7 metric tons) and of cannabis (in 2001 - 4,100 hectares); government eradication efforts have been key in keeping illicit crop levels low; major supplier of heroin and largest foreign supplier of marijuana and methamphetamine to the US market; continues as the primary transshipment country for US-bound cocaine from South America, accounting for about 70 percent of estimated annual cocaine movement to the US; major drug syndicates control majority of drug trafficking throughout the country; producer and distributor of ecstasy; significant money-laundering center.