This article is based on the Mexican case study undertaken as part of the comparative study of the implementation and impact of National Qualifications Frameworks (NQF). Even though Mexico does not have a comprehensive NQF, the country has considerable experience in the development of labour competence technical standards; these share some aims and characteristics of many NQFs and particularly the UK's National Vocational Qualifications. In the context of the increased emphasis on lifelong learning since the 1990s, Mexico became interested in the concept of competences and qualifications. Also national education policies have been emphasising labour competences in upper-level technological education. There has been a concern to address the weak relationship between supply and demand; in other words, the gap between educational provision and the needs of the productive sector, especially the industrial and services sectors, in the context of free trade agreements and NAFTA. An additional concern has been the complexity of upper-level education. It is characterised by a diversity of approaches and objectives as well as a wide variety in the length, structure and content of institutional curricula. Moreover, the government has had to address the lack of relation between the Secretariats of Public Education and of Labour and Social Welfare, especially in relation to workplace-based training. This "practical divorce" means that diplomas gained by workers from training courses offered by employers are not recognised in the formal educational system, except in a small part of adult basic education provided by the National Institute for Adult Education through its Educational Model for Life and Work. Mexico's labour competence approach--expressed in the Labour Competence Standardization and Certification Systems--has been developed through two projects: (1) the Technical Education and Training Modernization Project (PMETyC) from 1994 to 2003, financed by the World Bank (WB); and (2) the Multiphase Skills-Based Human Resources Development Programme (ProFoRHCom) from 2005 to the present time, financed by de Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). Although the loan contract to operate the second programme was signed on 9 April 2005, a legal problem and a change of federal administration resulted in an interim impasse between 2004 and 2007. It is important to understand these periods separately because the PMETyC is a completed case from which many lessons can be derived. (Contains 6 notes.)