The monopoly of political power exercised in Mexico for most of the last century by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was accompanied by – indeed many would say based on – monopolies in the economy, both private and public.

The 2000 election of Vicente Fox as president swept away the PRI’s political monopoly but huge swathes of the economy – beer, oil, soft drinks, cement, television, electricity and telephony to name a few – are still dominated by one or at most two big companies.