Texas Border Business
By Roberto Hugo González | Texas Border Business
McALLEN, Texas — Promoting Rio South Texas as a unified economic region rather than a collection of individual communities is central to attracting new manufacturing investment, Rick Carrera, director of economic development for COSTEP, the Council for South Texas Economic Progress, said during a presentation to the Clúster Eléctrico-Electrónico de Tamaulipas.
Carrera told business leaders, economic development officials and educators that COSTEP works alongside local economic development corporations to market the seven-county Rio South Texas region and its close manufacturing relationship with northern Tamaulipas.
“A lot of people ask me, ‘What’s the difference between what you do and what the local economic development corporations do?’” Carrera said. “When they go out and promote, they’re promoting a city. When I go out and promote, I’m promoting a region of 1.5 million people, if not even more once you include Tamaulipas.”
He said that approach allows the region to compete more effectively for industrial projects in an increasingly competitive global market.
Carrera described Rio South Texas and northern Tamaulipas as a highly integrated manufacturing corridor supported by an extensive transportation network, international bridges, industrial parks, rail service, airports and the Port of Brownsville.
He said many companies outside the region remain unfamiliar with Rio South Texas’ manufacturing capabilities, making education and outreach a key part of COSTEP’s mission.
“There are still some people out there that think Texas ends at San Antonio,” Carrera said. “We produce these maps because they’re very effective visual aids. They help people understand where we are—not just in Texas, but in North America.”
Carrera said COSTEP’s industrial database has become an important recruitment tool by identifying manufacturers already operating in the region and connecting companies with potential suppliers.
“Some companies did not know that their neighbor three or five miles away was producing the exact same product they were sourcing from somewhere in the Middle East or Asia,” he said.
He also emphasized the importance of promoting Tamaulipas alongside Rio South Texas, noting that many site selectors remain unfamiliar with the state’s manufacturing base.
“We have to promote Tamaulipas as much as we possibly can because we need to refamiliarize everybody with the manufacturing ecosystem that Tamaulipas has,” Carrera said.
Carrera pointed to recent regional announcements, including new industrial investments, the expansion of the Port of Brownsville and continued activity at Starbase, as examples of projects raising the region’s national profile.
He also encouraged companies in Rio South Texas to join the newly formed Clúster Eléctrico-Electrónico de Tamaulipas, saying regional collaboration creates opportunities that individual companies often cannot achieve alone.
“These clusters are very, very powerful,” Carrera said. “They can get a lot of things done as a cluster that you would not be able to do as an individual company.”
Carrera said workforce development remains a priority and praised regional colleges and universities for supporting manufacturers with training and applied research. He added that COSTEP will continue working with industry, educational institutions and economic development organizations to attract investment and strengthen manufacturing throughout Rio South Texas and northern Tamaulipas.
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