Glossary: maquiladoras
DEFINITION:
Assembly plants that are also called ""in-bond"" industries. Established by Mexico’s Border Industrialization Program during the mid-1960s to absorb the unemployed along the border with the United States following the termination of the bracero (migrant Mexican worker) program between the United States and Mexico in 1964. Machinery, equipment, and components were initially allowed to be imported duty-free for processing or assembly within a twenty-kilometer strip along the border as long as all the imported products were subsequently reexported. Later legislation permitted the establishment of in-bond industries anywhere in Mexico except Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey. End-product output from the assembly operations of the in-bond industries cannot be sold within Mexico.