ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the possibilities of complementarity between Mexican border industry and the national Mexican and US productive structures. It provides a description of the relevant characteristics of border industrialization for making choices of industrial complementarity. Mexico's national industrialization process began toward the end of the last century, but the civil war kept it in a dormant state until the consolidation of the revolutionary governments. There are significant differences between the type of foreign direct investment which the country's overall industrial development attracts and that which is stimulated by the Border Industrialization Program after 1965. In the 1977-1981 period, net external indebtedness functioned as a variable for the adjustment of the imbalance in the trade account, which in turn was the result of the rate of economic growth selected exante by the Mexican government. That is to say, the country grew at a higher rate than would have been possible on the basis of the trade balance.
