Morelos
Morelos was built on sugar.
Capital: Cuernavaca · Area: 4,879 km² · Checked 3 Nov 2026
Morelos at a glance
INEGI publishes IMMEX export-plant counts by state only in its database, not in the monthly bulletin we could read, so no count is shown here rather than an estimate; where Book 6 gives a share, it is in the text below.
This is Morelos
Morelos was built on sugar. After the conquest the Spanish shifted its valleys from maize and cotton to sugar cane, and in 1529 Hernán Cortés gained control of about 4,000 km² of territory here. Between 1884 and 1905, eighteen towns disappeared as haciendas took their land, and in 1911 Emiliano Zapata and his followers called for agrarian reform in the Plan de Ayala. The Nahua roots are older: by about 1250 the Tlahuicas had settled in and around Cuauhnahuac, today's Cuernavaca, and the 2020 census counted 37,569 speakers of Indigenous languages. Industry arrived in the 1960s with the CIVAC industrial city, where Nissan was among the first companies. Morelos is a major producer of roses, and its universities include UAEM, El Colegio de Morelos and the CENIDET. 18
Who it suits
With a shrinking economy and formal job base, Morelos is the weakest of the Center’s six on the current numbers. 5
The Center suits a company whose customers are in Mexico: distribution, food, pharmaceuticals, consumer goods, and suppliers to the Puebla auto plants. It suits a company that wants its managers, engineers, and buyers where the talent and offices are, in Mexico City, with a plant nearby in Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, or the Toluca corridor, where average formal wages run about 24% to 30% lower, and the labor pool is largely informal. It suits less well a plant that needs a large volume of water, in the corridor Chapter 7 finds tightest, with tanker supply regulated away, or a company shipping high-value goods by road to Texas, whose trucks start in the two states at the top of every cargo-theft count. It suits poorly a manufacturer hoping to hire inside the metro area against the logistics operators building fastest there. Morelos, with a shrinking economy and formal job base, is the weakest of the six on the current numbers.
What to check first
- Check the route before the site: the highway from the candidate park to the customer or the border, its record of cargo theft, and the security the carriers will price.
- Confirm the water source in writing, including its title and volume, and don’t rely on tanker supply.
- Check which side of the Mexico City line the building sits, because the payroll tax changes with it.
- Check the submarket’s vacancy and construction, because averages hide the boom north of the city.
- At the poles, check what has been placed against what was announced, and who will govern the state when the next phase is due.
- And check who else is hiring within a bus ride of the site, because in the Center the competitor for workers is as likely to be a warehouse as a plant.
Weighing Morelos for a plant, a warehouse or an office? Work with us.
Industry and plants
Real activity fell 3.1% in the first quarter of 2026, the only decline among the 6 Center entities (INEGI). Nissan, which began assembling in Cuernavaca in 1966, announced in July 2025 that it would close the plant and move production to Aguascalientes by March 2026. IMCO’s 2026 index ranks Morelos 29th. 5
Morelos had about 214,000 IMSS-registered formal jobs in July 2026, down 2.4% in a year, per Lokus Data, the steepest fall in the Center. Output per hour worked was 145 pesos in the first quarter of 2026, against 222 nationally (México ¿cómo vamos?). 5
Output by sector, 2024
Share of the state’s output, current prices 16
- 61.3%Services +0.4% real, 2024
- 28.4%Industry: manufacturing, construction, energy, mining +2.5% real, 2024
- 4.2%Agriculture, livestock, fishing +9.2% real, 2024
- 6.1%Taxes on products, net
Among the 32, measure by measure
Each bar is one state, largest on the left, in the colour of its corridor; Morelos is the bright one with the white edge. 1 2 3 7 6
Beside its neighbours in the Center
Share of Mexico’s output, 2024
Exports, 2025
Formal private jobs, July 2026
Informal work, Q2 2026
Morelos against Mexico
Coloured: the state. Grey: the whole country.
Safety, taxes and incentives
INEGI counted 2,259 victimized businesses per 10,000 in 2023, below 2,722 nationally, but homicide was 58 per 100,000 in 2025, second highest, against 21.4 nationally. The USA advisory of May 29, 2026, sets Level 3, reconsider travel. 5
Payroll tax rose from 2.5% to 3.0% for 2026 (BHR). The World Bank ranked Morelos 25th for construction permits in 2016. 5
Cities, ports, airports, crossings, power and water
Cuernavaca
The capital: 341,029 people (2020) 17
Jiutepec
City: 174,629 people (2020) 17
Cuautla
City: 157,336 people (2020) 17
Power and water
Chapter 7 rates the Center’s water, driven by the Valley of Mexico, the tightest of any corridor; Morelos lies in the Balsas basin, and its aquifers should be read on their own, while Chapter 6 compares its power. 5
Logistics and crossings
Freight from most Center sites starts in or through the Estado de México or Puebla, the two states at the top of every cargo-theft count. 5
Development pole
None of the poles declared in the Diario Oficial lies in Morelos. 5
The recent arrivals
- Jul 2025Nissan (CIVAC)Nissan began assembling in Cuernavaca in 1966, in what a creator channel called the company’s first plant outside Japan, and announced on July 29, 2025, that it would close the CIVAC plant and move vehicle production to Aguascalientes by March 2026. 8
Formal jobs in Morelos paid an average daily contribution wage of 598.19 pesos in July 2026, below the national average of 673.9 pesos, which covers all IMSS-insured workers. 5
Book 6’s cost model prices only Monterrey, Querétaro and Mérida in full.
Rent per square metre, freight to your customers and the fully loaded cost of your own workforce are figures we prepare for each client, not numbers to publish: work with us.
Sources, each with its date
- INEGI, Encuesta Intercensal 2025 (people in private dwellings; median age from the tabulates), 22 Sep 2026 · link
- INEGI, PIB por Entidad Federativa 2024, current prices; share our arithmetic over the national 33,506,847 million pesos, 5 Dec 2025 · link
- INEGI, Exportaciones Trimestrales por Entidad Federativa, the four quarters of 2025 summed (our arithmetic), preliminary, 31 Mar 2026 · link
- Wikipedia, List of states of Mexico, citing INEGI (continental area, 2016), 22 Oct 2026 · link
- Book 6, Where to Go in Mexico, Part V, with the sources listed there, Nov 2026 · link
- INEGI, ENOE second quarter 2026, bulletin 503/26, as compiled in Book 6, Part V, 25 Aug 2026 · link
- IMSS open data as processed by Lokus Data (private formal jobs and average daily contribution wage; the national wage of 673.9 pesos covers all IMSS-insured workers), as compiled in Book 6, Jul 2026 · link
- Book 6, Where to Go in Mexico, chapter 16, The Center, with the sources listed there, Nov 2026 · link
- INEGI, quarterly state exports, bulletin 609/26, as compiled in Book 6, 30 Sep 2026 · link
- Secretaría de Economía, foreign direct investment by state of destination, as reproduced by the Chamber of Deputies, Gaceta Parlamentaria, 14 Apr 2026 · link
- IMCO, Índice de Competitividad Estatal 2026, 21 Sep 2026 · link
- BHR, bulletin on state payroll-tax rates for 2026, as compiled in Book 6, Jan 2026 · link
- Institute for Economics and Peace, Mexico Peace Index 2026; USA Department of State travel advisory of 29 May 2026, 29 May 2026 · link
- INEGI, ENVE 2024 (businesses victimized in 2023, per 10,000), 10 Dec 2024 · link
- INEGI, ITAEE first quarter 2026 (change on a year), from Book 6, Figure VII.18, Nov 2026 · link
- INEGI, PIB por Entidad Federativa 2024, the state's press release (shares at current prices, growth at constant prices; taxes on products are 100 less the three activities, our arithmetic), 5 Dec 2025 · link
- Wikipedia, the city, airport, port and crossing pages (EN and ES), read 3 November 2026, 3 Nov 2026 · link
- Wikipedia and the pages listed: Morelos (English Wikipedia) (en); Morelos (Wikipedia en español) (es); Cuernavaca (English Wikipedia) (en), 3 Nov 2026 · link
Pictures
- Montaje de Tepoztlán: self., CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
- Montaje de Cuernavaca: self., CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons