The industrial park of some 4,000 hectares around the port of Altamira in southern Tamaulipas, which began operating in 1985, with further plants along the Tampico-Mante highway. It is one of Mexico's main petrochemical and plastics centres: plants here make terephthalic acid and PET, polypropylene, PVC, polystyrene, ABS and expandable polystyrene, synthetic rubber, carbon black, titanium dioxide, acrylic fibre and polymer dispersions.
