IMPACT OF NAFTA VICTORY : In Mexico, Hope Is Running High : Reaction: The accord has long been billed as the country’s passport to the First World.

There was an air of triumph here Wednesday night after the U.S. House of Representatives approved the North American Free Trade Agreement.

After all, NAFTA has been sold here as Mexico’s passport to the First World, “a once-in-a-generation opportunity,” in the words of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

Approval of the agreement virtually assures that Salinas will end his six-year term victoriously, providing a major advantage to the candidate of his Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as PRI, in next year’s presidential race.

The U.S. Senate is expected to vote before Thanksgiving, and the pact is expected to win easily there. And while the Mexican congress has yet to vote, NAFTA is expected to breeze through a legislature controlled by the highly disciplined PRI, which has ruled Mexico for six decades.

“Passage of NAFTA consolidates the PRI’s power in Mexico,” said Mexican author and environmental activist Homero Aridjis

But it also consolidates Mexico’s efforts to break into the realm of major trading nations.

Given such prospects, even skeptical independent economists were caught up in the enthusiasm over the U.S. vote.

“Mexico was born today,” said economist Rogelio Ramirez de la O, only half-jokingly.

And some in Mexico’s growing middle class were practically euphoric over the vote. The throbbing disco music fell silent at Yuppie’s Bar here, and cheers broke out among the young executives drinking there as TV screens broke away from a soccer game to carry live the House vote on NAFTA, according to Reuters.

Opposition presidential candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas pledged to observe the agreement, even though he has opposed it. “The agreement . . . becomes a legal norm of the Mexican state, which commits both this administration and the next,” he said in a written statement.

With NAFTA almost a done deal, Salinas--scheduled to tour Asia next month--will be able to offer potential investors there assured access to the North American market if they build plants and buy raw materials in Mexico.

As Salinas noted in his state of the nation address earlier this month, “The prospect of the free-trade agreement with the United States and Canada helped transform Europe’s former curiosity into a forthright interest in investing in and exchange with our country.”

For Mexican business people and foreign investors, approval also provides assurances that Mexico will continue its free-market economic reforms--regardless of who wins the presidential race.

Approval of NAFTA is expected to increase foreign investment as much as 15% in selected industries, maintaining the unprecedented flow of capital that the country has experienced in recent years, according to an analysis by Bancomer, Mexico’s largest bank.

Passage of “the agreement represents an extremely positive sign for investors, both domestic and foreign, because it reaffirms the nature and direction of Mexico’s current economic policy,” according to the Bancomer analysis.

That money will pay for modern equipment to update Mexico’s antiquated factories and make industry more competitive with that in the United States and Canada.

The Mexican stock exchange closed slightly lower Wednesday: The Bolsa index slipped 10.85 points to 2,148.50 but is expected to surge ahead today.

On New York exchanges Wednesday, shares of Mexican companies ended mostly lower as investors took profits in those issues on the perception that the passage of NAFTA was a done deal.

“With the approval of NAFTA, the United States has accepted its role as an American nation, putting an end to Eurocentrism and its historic prejudice against Mexico and Latin America,” Aridjis said.

The approval of NAFTA will give U.S. business an open door into a Mexican market eager for American goods, as demonstrated by Wednesday’s opening of the country’s first Wieners, the south-of-the-border name for Der Wienerschnitzel.

“Acceptance of American products was one of the things we’ve been banking on from the start,” said Derek Stilwell, general manager for the franchise in Mexico.