f the United States passed a bill providing for the punishment by fines and imprisonment of those recruiting and employing aliens who entered the country illegally. The Mexican economy grew at a healthy annual pace during the period from 1970 to 1974, but beginning in 1975 growth decreased markedly and inflation rose substantially. In an attempt to reduce the nation's foreign-trade deficit, the government in 1976 devalued the peso by more than 50 percent by changing from a fixed to a freely floating exchange rate. A potentially beneficial economic development was the discovery in 1974 and 1975 of huge crude-petroleum deposits in Campeche, Chiapas, Tabasco, and Veracruz states. Oil production more than doubled during the latter half of the 1970s. By the mid-1980s a rapid increase in foreign debt, coupled with falling oil prices, had plunged the country into severe financial straits. In 1989, the Salinas government sped up the privatization of state-controlled corporations and modified restrictive trade and investment regulations to encourage foreign investment by permitting full control of corporations by foreign investors. The current president, Ernesto Zedillo, is a strong advocate of reform. He has taken the lead in performing budget cuts, price and tax adjustments, tight monetary policy and further deregulation and privatization.Population The Mexican population is composed of three main groups: the people of Spanish descent, the Native Americans, and the people of mixed Spanish and Native American ancestry, or mestizos. Of these groups, the mestizos are by far the largest, constituting about 55 percent of the population. The Native Americans total about 30 percent. The population of Mexico is 90,419,606. The population density in 1990 was 119 people per square mile with about 73 percent of Mexicans living in urban areas. (Encarta, "Mexico")Political Divisions Mexico consists of 32 administrative divisions—31 states and the Dis...
