| dc.description.abstract | Until 1961, the year in which the government passed the so-called
Mexicanization of Mining Law, the industry’s fate was marked by foreign
capital’s iron grip on the nation’s largest and richest mineral deposits. Since
then, mining has experienced an abrupt shift in direction as control over the
industry has been transferred to the state and Mexican capital. In spite of the
nationalist spirit that motivated this measure, it became evident very early
that the real reason for the change was to develop a sector of Mexicanized
mining capital that would become one of the most dynamic and internationally
influential branches of the nation’s monopoly capital.1 The Mexican
Mining Group is the second-most-important mining corporation in Latin
America, with sales of US$1,823 million in 1999, and the third-largest copper
producer in the world. When it acquired the U.S. company ASARCO
on November 17, 1999, it doubled its sales capacity, making it the leading
mining-metallurgical company in the region (Zellner, 2000: 54–55). In 1999,
Peñoles Industries occupied third place in Latin America, with sales of close
to US$1,000 million. Besides being the world’s primary producer of refined
silver, metallic bismuth, and sodium sulfate, it also operates Latin America’s
most important non-iron metallurgical complex. FRISCO, part of the Carso
Group, registering sales of US$205 million. | |
