Extract

Laura Zapata Cantú, Mariela Quiroga† & Ana Luisa Cabrera‡

As noted by Bauman (2006), globalization has created a new way of perceiving the world in order to live in it. During the eighties, the term “global” meant a new way to compete, “compete aggressively” in the words of Prahalad (1998). Since then and until today, “global” means to compete aggressively for a market share of nearly 8,000 million people in the world.

Moreover, globalization has shown asymmetric economic growth, mainly due to multinational companies whose headquarters are in Western countries. This trend began to change in the nineties with the emergence of multinationals, mainly from Asian countries and particularly from India.

Given this irreversible fact, most countries of the world participate in treaties or trade agreements that facilitate the export and import of goods and services. Thus, this chapter presents an exploration of how several Mexican companies have entered the European market, with some having the auspices of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the European Union and Mexico. While other companies started trading with the European Union long before the creation of the FTA.

Mexico is one of the two largest economies in Latin America, with a population of over 110 million and a per capita income of almost US $10,000. Mexico has been a member of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) since 1994 and has concluded a set of free trade agreements (FTA) with its major...