What has Mexico's main economic challenge been?

Answer 1

Some of them would be:

Competitiveness: Even if Mexico has addressed competitiveness issues by improving its labor and fiscal laws, it still faces huge challenges when competing against the BRIC bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China) for economic opportunities, markets and foreign investment from developed countries. As an example, in terms of competitiveness (2013), Mexico is ranked in the 53rd spot, out of 144 countries. For comparison purposes, it is better ranked than India and Rusia (59th and 67th positions, respectively) but worse qualified than China and Brazil (ranked 29th and 48th, respectively).

Security: The ever-scaling violence between drug cartels and police forces, as part of the "Mexican War on Drugs" (2006 - present-day). This conflict has put a severe strain in Mexico's resources, as demands for security have to be counterbalanced against other priority issues, like poverty or education. To date, there have been more than 120,000 dead since the conflict begun.

Education: Lack of education for most of the population, as only one in every 10 Mexicans completes college education. It is widely known in Mexico that the education minister does not work on improving the education of Mexican children, but to deal with the day-to-day issues of the Teachers Union, which is one of the most corrupt in the country. Nowadays, in terms of reading, mathematics and writing, Mexican students qualify as second-to-last against all OCDE countries (it is just barely ahead of Turkey)

Economy: World economic bust compounded with high dependence on the United States as receiver of Mexican exports. Although during recent years Mexico's economy has had a decent growth (3.9% in 2012), any downturn on the US economy would severely impact Mexico's potential growth. For 2014, Mexico is expected to grow only 1.5-2.0%

Poverty: Although Mexico is a world leader in hunger reduction, there is still a 5% of children under 5 suffering with malnutrition; according to the United Nations Development Programme, 17.6% of Mexicans (19.7 million for 2009) are below the poverty line. Using the asset-based definition of poverty, this number is much higher with 47-52% of the population below the poverty line.

Peak Oil: Current Mexican oil reserves are dwindling, with 7 years left to be completely gone. Recent energy reforms (2013) have been implemented to allow foreign investment into the gas and oil sector, including drilling in deep waters along the Gulf of Mexico, but results of such reform - lower prices, higher competitiveness and production - will not be seen for at least another 5 years

Corruption: Rampant corruption among public officers. Also, due to the war on drugs, there are high levels of corruption among police and armed forces, specially when dealing against drug cartels. This process has been known as "plata o plomo" (silver or lead) meaning the drug cartels threaten security officials to either accept bribes or be killed by the cartels' operatives

Environment: climate change and environmental degradation are a global issue, but Mexico is being hard hit, including more than 300 threatened species and several more already extinct, mostly due to habitat loss. Deforestation, erosion and desertification are also a present danger. Finally, pollution of soil and water sources are considered "contained", but nonetheless are a persistent issue.