New strategies for the mexican petrochemical industry

It is necessary to define new strategies for achieving a proper growing and development of the Mexican Petrochemical Industry. As each product can be used as a final product or as raw material the influence of its production is remarkable all over the national production chains. Petrochemicals in Mexico have been classified as basic and secondary ones, by political reasons. These two groups allowed governmental institutions to regulate private activity versus public activity in this sector. At the beginning, the first group was devoted to the first chemical transformation and the secondary one to subsequent transformations. For last 30 years, petrochemical industry has not been developed as the Mexican people wanted. The trends showed that total production has remained at the same level, many installations were left out of service and imports grow very fast. The official explanations to justify the present situation of Mexican Petrochemical industry are diverse: low investments, reduced scale sizes of plants and uncertainty in government rules for new investors and for gas price as a raw material. These are the main reasons which explain the lack of competitiveness in the global market That is why this paper focuses the strategic problem of how to rescue this industry and how to promote a new outline for achieving the desired development.