“…For this reason, the survival of subsidies will depend less on the tax benefits they offer than on the efficacy of their distribution and production support services and the agglomeration economies they manage to create. Moreover, it should be noted that, according to a recent ECLAC study (Buitelaar, Padilla and Urrutia, 1999), maquila industries, which tend to develop in free zones, can -under certain conditions-promote various forms of learning and technical progress. In this process, the ability to develop quality control engineering, which improves the chances of gaining a foothold in more specialized product niches with greater value added, is of particular importance.…”