Economy
The state provides 9.7% of the country’s gross national product, with over 12% of all of Mexico’s active workforce employed in the state. The most important sector of the economy is industry and manufacturing, with over 10% of the state’s land urbanized. The State of Mexico ranks second in the country for industrial output. The most important industries include chemicals, food products, textiles, paper products, metalworks and the construction and maintenance of transport vehicles. This sector employs the highest percentage of the population at 27.7%.
The next largest employer is commerce at 21.5%. One important segment of this sector is this hotel and restaurant industry. Outside of the metropolitan areas, tourism is an important element in the state economy, with attractions such as Valle de Bravo, Teotihuacan, Ixtapan de la Sal and others.
Most of the state’s land is devoted to agriculture (38.1%) or to forest (34.9%). Much of these crop forest lands are ejido or communal lands. The main crop is corn, with peas, barley, beans, potatoes, alfalfa, wheat, avocados and guava also grown. Livestock is raised on about 17% of the state’s farmland with cattle being the most important animal. Almost all of the forest lands in the state are used for producing forestry products such as wood and paper. However, this sector only employs 1.3% of the state’s population.
Other sectors of the economy include financial services, employing 21.4% of the population and transportation which employs 14.4%. While mining has been historically important, today it is only a minor activity despite residual deposits of gold, silver, lead and other minerals.
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Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job,” but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical terms.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)