Editing Maquiladora (section)

=== NAFTA ===
With the introduction of [[NAFTA]] in 1994, Northern Mexico became an export processing zone. This allowed multinational corporations from the US to produce products cheaply. Corporations could use a maquila to import materials and produce a good more cheaply than in the US by paying Mexican laborers lower wages and paying less in duties. Mexicans work for approximately one-sixth of the U.S. hourly rate.<ref name=":3" /> During the five years before NAFTA, maquila employment had grown at a rate of 47%; this figure increased to 86% in the next five years. The number of factories also increased dramatically. Between 1989 and 1994, 564 new plants opened; in the five years following, 1460 plants opened. However, the maquiladora growth is largely attributable to growth in US demand and devaluation of the peso, not NAFTA itself.<ref>Larudee, Mehrene. "Causes of Growth and Decline in Mexico's Apparel Sector." International Review of Applied Economics, Vol 21, September 2007. pp. 539-559.</ref><ref>Truett, Lila and Truett, Dale. "NAFTA and the Maquiladoras: Boon or Bane." Contemporary Economic Policy, Vol 25, July 2007. pp374-386</ref><ref name="AmericanOutsourcing">Vietor, Richard H.K. and Veytsman, Alexander. "American Outsourcing." 
Harvard Business School Case Study No. 9-705-037, rev. February 2, 2007 (Boston, MA: HBS Publishing, 2005), p. 6. "The devaluation of the peso in 1994, which overnight reduced all peso-denominated manufacturing costs including energy and labor, improving the profitability of the maquiladoras, explains the growth spurt more than the changes in duties that were the result of NAFTA.  US tariffs were already low, and Mexican duties were already not charged to maquiladoras."</ref> In the 1970s, most maquiladoras were located around the [[Mexico&ndash;United States border]]. By 1994, these were spread in the interior parts of the country, although the majority of the plants were still near the border.{{citation needed|date=December 2018}}