Mexico’s economy has long operated at different speeds, with an industrial north closely linked to the neighboring United States outpacing a less developed south.
It is an imbalance that outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has tried to address with infrastructure megaprojects including the oil refinery, a tourist railway and a new airport serving Caribbean beach resorts.
In the northern border state of Nuevo Leon, Blanca Lopez manages a bustling aerospace components maker on the outskirts of the manufacturing hub of Monterrey.
The parts coming off the production line might end up in airplane seats or engines, said Lopez, whose family grew the company from a fledgling business in her father’s workshop to a supplier for clients including US giant Boeing.
“It’s a source of pride to know that you’re doing things well and that your people are well trained,” the 41-year-old businesswoman told AFP.
The factory is part of an aerospace cluster that has helped to boost Nuevo Leon’s economic output to eight percent of the national total.
Business leaders are optimistic that the border region will benefit from the so-called “nearshoring” trend of companies moving manufacturing from Asia closer to the huge US market.
About 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) to the south, Sandra Sanchez waits for customers at a restaurant in Chiltepec.
The picturesque coastal town is located near a new oil refinery that Lopez Obrador’s government built in his home state of Tabasco with an investment of $16.8 billion.
“We hope that the people who come will contribute to the town,” the 34-year-old said next to chairs that for the moment were empty.
Sanchez said she noticed a difference under Lopez Obrador, who has an approval rating of more than 60 percent but is only allowed to serve one term under the constitution.
The leftist leader showed the potential to “lift up Tabasco” and the entire country, she told AFP.
“The economy did change a lot since his six-year term began,” Sanchez said.
Like others in Chiltepec, she has already had a taste of the fruits of the infrastructure investment.
When the refinery was under construction, the restaurant where she works benefited from the arrival of hundreds of construction workers.
At that time, its takings could total 120,000 pesos — just over $7,000 — in a single weekend.
Now that construction has finished, that figure has dropped to about $1,200.
Experts say the economy of southern Mexico has been boosted not only by the refinery but also the Maya Train tourist railway, another one of Lopez Obrador’s emblematic projects in the Yucatan Peninsula.
Tabasco’s economy grew 6.8 percent in 2023 — the most of any Mexican state — which analysts at the Spanish bank BBVA attributed to government-linked construction work.
