Foreword

Regulations are indispensable for the proper functioning of society and markets. They encompass different levels of rules, including technical regulations that set specific safety and quality requirements for products across sectors ensuring that laws and regulations deliver on their policy goals. Together, they create the “rules of the game” for citizens, businesses, government and civil society. Laws and regulations benefit society only if they are appropriately implemented and enforced, and do not impose undue costs. Yet, most countries remain largely focused on the design of regulations rather than on the later stages of delivering and reviewing them.

This Review on Implementing Technical Regulations in Mexico provides the first OECD assessment of the challenges of applying technical regulations. It analyses the delivery of Mexican technical regulations, focusing on policies and practices around conformity assessment and regulatory inspections. It identifies key areas for improvement and provides recommendations for Mexico to develop a whole-of-government and systemic approach to their implementation.

This review is based on answers provided by the Ministry of Economy and several Mexican agencies to OECD questionnaires, and on various interviews conducted during three fact-finding missions in Mexico City. The review benefited from the insight of peer-reviewers from Canada and the United Kingdom. Two preliminary versions of this report were discussed in policy workshops with a wide range of Mexican public officials and stakeholders. The report was also peer-reviewed in the OECD Regulatory Policy Committee.

This report supports the broader ambition of Mexico to improve the effectiveness of its regulatory framework to ensure more efficient and competitive markets. It was commissioned by Mexico’s Ministry of Economy.

The review was carried out under the auspices of the OECD Regulatory Policy Committee whose mandate is to assist both members and non-members in building and strengthening capacity for regulatory quality and regulatory reform. The review builds on the OECD 2012 Recommendation of the Council on Regulatory Policy and Governance, which makes regulatory enforcement an integral part for regulatory effectiveness. The review further draws from the OECD Best Practice Principles on Inspections and Enforcement and its toolkit, and the OECD body of work on international regulatory co-operation developed since 2012 including a 2018 Review of International Regulatory Co-operation of Mexico. This report was peer reviewed by the OECD Regulatory Policy Committee, approved on 7 November 2019 and prepared for publication by the OECD Secretariat.