As Mexican ambassador to the Netherlands, I regularly travel back to Mexico, mostly for business, sometimes for family affairs, but also, why not? for holidaying. I just came back from one of those visits. I saw my family, enjoyed the sun and Mexico's deservedly famous hospitality, ate more than I should have and had really useful meetings with government officials. To be sure, Mexico remains the vibrant, culturally endowed, incredibly biodiverse country whose food, traditions and history are so highly appreciated by the Dutch. But never before in more than three years based in the Netherlands and almost eight consecutive years serving abroad had I seen such a big gap between Mexico' s image -including, perhaps more troubling, perceptions among my fellow countrymen- and Mexico's reality. So, for a change, let me talk about issues other than the reports on violence -a phenomenon that would require a separate article to be contextualized and fully understood.

 

Let me share with you some facts and figures that reflect accomplishments of not one administration or party but of the Mexican society as a whole. Let us talk about Mexico. A Mexico that is bigger and larger than the very narrow portrait that appears regularly in both national and international press, including the Dutch one. Allow me then to update you on very important developments that have taken place in Mexico but have not attracted the public attention they deserve, shunned by the avalanche of gruesome images that some media outlets seem to prefer.

 

Since the mid 70's Mexico suffered serious economic crisis roughly every six years. But after the big fallout in 1995, Mexico has enjoyed 15 years of uninterrupted economic stability. There have been some bumps in the road (notably the 2008-09 worldwide recession), but the trends of all its economic and social indicators have been decisively and consistently positive. As a result, Mexico nowadays is an active G20 member and has become a resolutely middle class country, forcing Goldman Sachs to replace the outgrown concept of BRIC with the less catchy but more accurate “growth markets” -that includes the former BRICs plus Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey.

 

In successfully weathering the ‘95 economic and financial crisis, Mexico saved and restructured its banking system (yes, 12 years before Europe and the USA!) and put in place a set of tough monetary and fiscal measures. The outcome?: the reduction to single digits of the high rates of interest and inflation that haunted Mexico for years, stable peso/dollar exchange rates and a public deficit that is nowadays lower than any country in the European Union, except for Estonia, Luxembourg and Sweden. In the midst of the world economic crisis and spite of the AH1N1 outbreak, the IMF estimated that Mexico’s GDP per capita in PPP terms (Purchasing Power Parity) reached $13,600 in 2009, an increase of 40% in real terms compared to 1988. As notable as this is, according to The Economist, national statistics in Mexico have traditionally underestimated growth by 10%, which means that a review of the system is very likely to show my country’s GDP per capita surpassing the $15,000 mark a year ago, higher than any other country in Latin America and 50% above Brazil’s.

 

At the same time, Mexico’s international reserves kept growing and increased by 25% in 2010, when they reached an all-time record of $114 billion, more than twice the entire country’s foreign debt. AT Kearney positioned the Mexican economy as the 8^th most attractive for investment worldwide, placing Mexico above the BRIC and all of the Latin American countries. In spite of all the challenges, tourism has fully recovered to the levels of 2008, the best year ever. 2010 saw an increase of almost 17% on international visitors arriving by air and tourism is expected to grow a further 15% and reach 26 million foreign visitors this year.

 

Along with the economic package came an innovative and bold social program now called Oportunidades (opportunities) aim at reducing poverty through the improvement of nourishment, access to health care and linking economic rewardsto each family’s commitment to their children’s education. As a result of Oportunidades and its predecessors, between 1989 and 2006 poverty in Mexico was slashed by one third, dropping from 47.7% to 31.7%. Food poverty, or the inability to have access to the basic food basket, dropped from 61.8% in 1950 to 18.2% in 2008. According to the widely reputed Mexican economists Luis Rubio and Luis de la Calle, authors of “Middle classers: Poor no more, Developed not yet“, all basic indicators of a growing middle class are now present in Mexico: between 1960 and 2008 life expectancy increased among females from 60 to 78 years and among males from 56 to 73 years old. Infant mortality dropped from 79.4 per thousand in 1970 to 14.7 in 2009. Levels of education doubled between 1976 and 2006, as meat consumption did in 15 years, reaching 62 kilos per person in 2005. Car population soared to more than 19 million in 2008 from 3.4 million in 1980. New entertainment venues grew by 244% between 1991 and 2007 and movie shows increased from 830 thousand in 1991 to 4.6 million. 

 

With the establishment of a universal health care system called Seguro Popular (popular insurance) access to free health care in Mexico went from 47 million in 2000 to 93 million in 2010. Last year alone, over 2,000 new hospitals and clinics were built and universal coverage is expected before the end of the current administration. Additionally, during the last 10 years 6.5 million new houses have been built and financed by the government. This represents one of every four houses ever built in Mexico, which are now home to more than 25 million new proud homeowners.

 

In tune with the times, more and more Mexicans have access to cell phones, cable TV, computers, internet, air traveling and holidaying abroad. Macroeconomic stability, higher internal competitiveness, lower tariffs for imports and avant garde social programs have resulted in a new, empowered, strongly democratic and demanding middle class that is Mexico’s driving force and best hope for the future.

 

In the mid 90's Mexico was promoted to the developed world by decree, only to be surprised by the Zapatistas uprising in Chiapas and later by a major economic, financial and banking crisis. But three administrations down the road under two different parties, an almost silent revolution has taken place which has radically transformed Mexico and moved the majority of its people out of the ranks of poverty into the middle class. There is still a lot to be done in my country and the challenges that lay ahead are not for the tame, but the social and economic changes that Mexico has undergone in the past 15 years are, by any measure, huge news, as much as it is the fact that they have largely gone unnoticed or unacknowledged.