Investment does not flee from the country: it flees from disorder…
– Macraf
In Davos it was spoken as if the main challenge was to “coordinate” a complex federation and digitize permits to accelerate investments. That is true, but incomplete. The underlying problem—and the one that really determines whether Mexico will attract investment in 2026—is that the country still does not offer the minimum package that any productive capital requires: security, sufficient energy and credible rules.
Let’s talk about security, which in international forums is usually treated with mild language, as if it were a “challenge.” In Mexico, insecurity is a direct cost: extortion, theft, blockades, territorial control, more expensive insurance, slower logistics, frozen investment decisions. You can have “regional vocations” and “zones of specialization,” but if a company cannot move merchandise without risk or cannot operate without illegal payments, the plan becomes irrelevant. Without security there is no sustainable investment, period.
Then there is the energy. The “enormous potential” in renewables and energy transition was mentioned. There is potential. What is missing is what matters: installed capacity, transmission, interconnection rules, regulatory certainty and a functioning market. Investors do not finance potential; They finance bankable projects. And for something to be bankable you need stable rules, viable permits, clear times and a credible referee. Yeah
The energy sector operates with contradictory signals and with political priority over efficiency, so the potential remains a discourse.
Then come the institutions. There was talk of macrostability and an independent central bank. Good. But the economy does not live only on monetary autonomy. It lives on courts that resolve, regulators that do not change on a whim, contracts that are respected, and a State that does not use the law as a tool of pressure. If the investor perceives that the legal terrain is fluid, he is not left to “lead a new globalization”; It goes where the contract is valid.
It was also assumed that Mexico can go from two point seven years to one to land investments. Hopefully. But that figure not only speaks of procedures: it speaks of governance. He speaks of municipalities with perverse incentives, of misaligned states, of offices that do not share information, of permits that become currency. Digitizing is not enough if discretion is not cut. Homologating is not enough if corruption is not punished. And creating a secretariat is not enough if the entire system continues to reward the “I’ll unlock it if…” that everyone knows and no one confesses.
In Davos the increase in the minimum wage as a driver of the internal market was celebrated. It may be, partially. But the real question is: how is that momentum sustained if productivity doesn’t grow at the same rate? In the real world, wages rise healthily when the economy produces more value per worker. If not, the increase becomes friction: it puts pressure on costs, pushes informality or is diluted with prices. And if we really want social mobility for engineers and graduates in scientific and technological careers that the market is not absorbing, as was said, then we must connect education with high-value jobs… but those jobs do not appear by decree: they appear when there is investment, innovation and competitive ecosystems.
There was even talk of “creating a great Mexican tech” with development banks, data centers and AI laboratories. It sounds ambitious. But here it is worth remembering an uncomfortable truth: a frontier technological sector is not built when the country does not guarantee
basic certainties. The digital economy requires reliable energy, connectivity, talent, financing, intellectual property protection, clear regulations and an environment where the entrepreneur does not feel that his business depends on the mood of the regulator.
In summary, the Davos speech presents a Mexico that “can lead” a new wave of globalization. The real Mexico, that of 2026, faces a simpler dilemma: either it corrects security, energy and institutions, or it will continue selling plans while the investment remains a promise.
Because yes: achievements and rankings can be listed. But productive investment does not buy speeches. Buy certainty.
In this way, we continue to live among figures that shine… and pockets that are not enough.
* The author is an academic at the School of Government and Economics and the School of Communication of the Universidad Panamericana, an expert consultant in economic, financial and government issues, general director and founder of the site El Comentario del Día and main host of the analysis program: Voces Universitarias.
Contact and networks: https://eduardolopezchavez.mx/redes
