Texas Border Business
A delegation of officials from San Pedro De Las Colonias, Coahuila de Zaragoza, led by Mayor Juan Fco. González González spent the day in Mercedes Tuesday opening a dialogue to possible future relationships and business investments.
The visit is a first step in establishing a possible sister-city relationship as well as researching the Valley’s higher education models that integrate technology and distance learning.
Mercedes Mayor Henry Hinojosa, City Manager Richard Garcia, and the Mercedes Development Corporation Executive Director Hernán González greeted the delegation with a breakfast where local business people had an opportunity to visit with the delegation.
These civic leaders from south of the border came a long way to get to know an area they knew only as a great place to shop. The seven-member delegation had been to the area many times to shop at the outlets but had never traversed south of the Expressway. Mayor Henry Hinojosa knew this was a perfect opportunity to show off the city. “This is our way of showing our hospitality while showing them with great pride what the Queen City of Mercedes has to offer,” he said.
Mercedes business leaders who attended the meeting included Trainor Evans of Rios of Mercedes, Richard Galvan with Orbit Broadband, Lorenzo Ruelas from Aisla Coat and Jose Garcia and Barney Trevino of Rio Tex Meat. These are all businesses on the cutting edge of current business trends as well as organizations that have been doing business south of the border.
The group toured the Texas Valley Community Foundation’s office where a partnership with The Texas Graduate Center and Harvard University allows local math teachers to graduate within three years from this Ivy League internationally respected higher education institution with most of the course study done online from the Rio Grande Valley. It was a remarkable experience for the delegates to see that in a small community like Mercedes impressive programs take place.
San Pedro is a sister-city to Springfield, Illinois where they enjoy cultural and business exchange opportunities. They would like to have the same type of relationship with Mercedes. Gonzalez said it takes a healthy mutual relationship to make a sister-city arrangement work. “You read about cities wanting to have this type of arrangement with other communities south of the border without a consistent effort to make it happen. We know this must be reciprocated by our officials so a visit to their city may be in the works later for the summer,” he said. Gonzalez added that it isn’t a one and done deal, this will be an ongoing relationship.
The municipality of San Pedro De Las Colonias is located in the Laguna region of Coahuila, Mexico. It has a population of 100,000 people. TBB
