WESLACO, Texas - The Council for South Texas Economic Progress will be sending a copy of its latest report to every member of the Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council.
This promise was made by Rick Carrera, economic development director of COSTEP, at an LRGVDC board meeting held May 27.
The report is titled: "Manufacturing vs Warehousing & Storage vs Retail Trade."
Speaking during the public comment period, Carrera said: “We are a regional economic development authority and we cover seven counties in South Texas along the Mexico border."
He said COSTEP splits its coverage area into two, one focusing on the Rio Grande Valley and the other Laredo.
“Why I come to you this afternoon is just to explain that we will be sending everybody our latest report, which outlines the benefits of manufacturing and manufacturing recruiting efforts, and how it interplays with the entire economic development spectrum, and how it interplays with retail and logistics and warehousing,” Carrera said.
“More importantly, we want to emphasize that recruiting more (companies in the) manufacturing industry to the area, produces a much, much greater dollar amount and ripple effect than perhaps the recruitment of retail or some other industries.”
Carrera continued: “Granted, this isn't front page news to everybody. Anybody who's been involved with the economy would know this (that manufacturing yields a higher return), but it's always good to have this quantified with data that we have obtained through a third party consultant.”
Carrera said COSTEP would also be sending another report to LRGVDC soon.
“In addition to this study, we'll be sending out another report that outlines what the benefits would be for the Rio Grande Valley if it was one MSA. I know that talks have been going on (about this) for quite some time now, and we wanted to quantify that as well.”
MSA stands for Metropolitan Statistical Area. Currently, the Valley has two MSAs - McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, which covers Hidalgo County, and Brownsville-Harlingen, which covers Cameron County.
“This is just a heads up, if you will, that we'll be sending this report to everybody that's here, and perhaps some of your other elected officials and your economic development professionals.”
