IMPACT OF NAFTA VOTE : In Mexico, Hope Is Running High : Reaction: Officials and industrialists have tirelessly promoted the accord as the country’s best bet for the future.

Reports late Wednesday that the U.S. House of Representatives had enough votes to approve the North American Free Trade Agreement cheered government officials and many industrialists here who have tirelessly promoted the agreement as Mexico’s best hope for the future.

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, expected Wednesday night, would virtually assure that Salinas will end his six-year term triumphantly, providing a major advantage to the candidate of his Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as PRI, in next year’s presidential race.

While the Mexican congress has yet to vote on the agreement, NAFTA is expected to pass easily through a legislature controlled by the highly disciplined PRI, which has ruled Mexico for six decades.

“Passage of NAFTA (would consolidate) the PRI’s power in Mexico,” said Mexican author and environmental activist Homero Aridjis.

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

If NAFTA is approved, 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 would also provide assurances that Mexico will continue its free-market economic reforms--regardless of who wins the presidential race.

Approval of NAFTA could 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 an analysis by the country’s largest bank, Bancomer.

That money would pay for modern equipment to update Mexico’s antiquated factories and make industry more competitive with industry 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 if the pact is approved.

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.

NAFTA’s passage would provide 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.

Fifteen minutes into the lunch hour, there was hardly an empty seat at the new restaurant, the latest in a bumper crop of U.S. fast-food franchises that have sprung up along the fashionable Paseo de la Reforma, the city’s main boulevard.

NAFTA would most clearly tie Mexico even more closely to the United States, which already accounts for three-fourths of this nation’s trade and two-thirds of the $58 billion in total foreign investment here.

For example, Pedro Noyola, undersecretary of foreign trade, is believed to have two versions of the new foreign investment law sitting on his desk--one in case NAFTA passes and one in case it does not.

Both would open up more Mexican industries to foreign investment. If NAFTA is approved, the bill sent to the congress will reserve those opportunities for U.S. and Canadian businesses, government sources say. The other bill would open up investment to all foreigners, including Europeans and Asians.