The Maquila Decree, established in 1989, lays out the legal requirements for foreign operations in

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

. As described by the Bancomext Mexican Showroom, an organization to promote foreign investment in Mexico, this program allows foreign companies to build and operate

factories A factory, manufacturing plant or production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. Th ...

in virtually any Mexican location of their choosing. These companies are allowed to import materials and equipment

duty-free A duty-free shop or store is a retail outlet whose goods are exempt from the payment of certain local or national taxes and duties, on the requirement that the goods will be sold to travelers who will take them out of the country, who will ...

, the only limitation being that these items will at some unspecified date be removed from Mexico. For these reasons, items manufactured in Mexico are generally

export An export in international trade is a good produced in one country that is sold into another country or a service provided in one country for a national or resident of another country. The seller of such goods or the service provider is a ...

ed. As for the items being manufactured, there are virtually no restrictions other than obtaining a special permit if the product involves

radioactive material A radionuclide (radioactive nuclide, radioisotope or radioactive isotope) is a nuclide that has excess numbers of either neutrons or protons, giving it excess nuclear energy, and making it unstable. This excess energy can be used in one of three ...

firearm A firearm is any type of gun that uses an explosive charge and is designed to be readily carried and operated by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see legal definitions). The first firearms originate ...

s. The limitations are so lax that even activities such as

data processing Data processing is the collection and manipulation of digital data to produce meaningful information. Data processing is a form of ''information processing'', which is the modification (processing) of information in any manner detectable by an o ...

are allowed, and not necessarily in conjunction with other

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer ...

activities. Furthermore,

income Income is the consumption and saving opportunity gained by an entity within a specified timeframe, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. Income is difficult to define conceptually and the definition may be different across fields. F ...

and

property tax A property tax (whose rate is expressed as a percentage or per mille, also called ''millage'') is an ad valorem tax on the value of a property.In the OECD classification scheme, tax on property includes "taxes on immovable property or Wealth t ...

es payable to the

Mexican Federal Government The politics of Mexico function within the framework of a federal presidential representative democratic republic whose government is based on a multi-party congressional system, where the President of Mexico is both head of state and head ...

are minimal. Some of the

maquiladores A (), or (), is a factory that is largely duty free and tariff free. These factories take raw materials and assemble, manufacture, or process them and export the finished product. These factories and systems are present throughout Latin Ameri ...

pollute the

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( or ) in the United States or the Río Bravo (del Norte) in Mexico (), also known as Tó Ba'áadi in Navajo language, Navajo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the Southwestern United States a ...

References

Industry in Mexico Law of Mexico Labor in Mexico Economic history of Mexico Occupational safety and health Decrees {{Mexico-hist-stub