page_title: Querétaro City
section_title: Economy
hierarchical_section_title: Querétaro City / Economy
caption_attribution_description: English: Handicrafts found at the historic center in Santiago de Querétaro, picture taken by me.
context_page_description: Santiago de Querétaro, known simply as Querétaro City, is the capital and largest city of the state of Querétaro, located in central Mexico. It is part of the macroregion of Bajío. It is 213 kilometers northwest of Mexico City, 63 kilometers southeast of San Miguel de Allende and 200 kilometers south of San Luis Potosí. The city of Querétaro is divided into seven boroughs: Josefa Vergara y Hernández, Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Centro Histórico, Cayetano Rubio, Santa Rosa Jáuregui, Félix Osores Sotomayor and Epigmenio González. In 1996, the historic center of Querétaro was declared a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO.
  It is a strong business and economic centre and a vigorous service city that is experiencing an ongoing social and economic revitalization.
  Querétaro has seen an outstanding industrial and economic development since the mid-1990s. Querétaro metropolitan area has the 2nd highest GDP per capita among Mexico's metropolitan areas with US$20,000 after Monterrey.
context_section_description: Economic growth has been outstanding during the last decade. Today, Querétaro is a middle class city in terms of PPP GDP, with $20,000, The municipality of Querétaro was ranked 23rd in Mexico on the United Nations Index of Human Development. Querétaro debuted in 13th place in the 2006 rankings of the "Best Cities to do Business in Latin America" in América Economía, a leading economic magazine. In the 2007 rankings, it is considered the second best place in Mexico to do business, after Monterrey and the fifth best in Latin America, ahead of Miami in 6th place. The ranking takes into account variables such as telecommunications, innovation, quality of life, urban expansion, and crime statistics. In its 2007 survey entitled "Cities of the Future", FDI magazine ranked Querétaro as having the third highest cost effectiveness of all North American cities between 500,000 and two million people. In the overall classification of large cities, Querétaro was ranked sixth.
  Until the 1970s, agriculture had been the overwhelming basis of the economy of the municipality outside the city and commerce within it. Since then, the expansion of industry and the growth of the city, which started in the 1950s, have diminished the importance of agriculture and the land available for it. It now only employs .01% of the municipality's population. Major employers now are the industrial parks that surround the city and extend to San Juan del Río. These include the Zona Industrial Benito Juarez, Parque Industrial Querétaro, Parque Industrial Jurica Parque La Montaña and the Querétaro-San Juan del Río Industrial Corridor. Most of the businesses operating here are foreign-owned or were built with foreign investment monies. Industries include machine and auto parts, food processing, paper products, printing, chemicals and glass.
  Querétaro's economic growth is above the national average, due in part, the city believes, to the investment that it makes in infrastructure, public services and the creation of parks as well as sports and cultural facilities.
  The economy spurs immigration to the city, which has seen a population growth of more than 3.5 percent a year. The industrialization of the area has attracted a large number of migrants from poorer areas of Mexico but many of these are unemployed or under-employed. This has led to an explosion of informal markets and other businesses in and around the city. Also a large number of those seeking to migrate to the northern Mexican states or to the United States pass through here. This has led to commerce being the largest economic activity in the municipality.
  Tourism has grown as a sector of the economy, especially in the city proper, and is now one of the most important, accounting for 21 percent of the gross product of the city.
  Both Standard & Poor's and the newspaper Reforma have ranked Querétaro as one of the safest cities to live in with the highest quality of life in Mexico. According to the Secretaría de Desarrollo Sustenable Municipal, the city is expected to increase in size 35 percent over the next 20 to 25 years. Economic growth for 2009 and 2010 was predicted to be between one and two percent due to the worldwide economic downturn.
caption: Glassworking made Querétaro an economic center in the 1700s, and glass crafting is still a trade mark of the city today.
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