Fueling economic advancement 

Summit unites leaders to chart a path of prosperity

Bringing together business and community leaders, the Rio Grande Valley Economic Summit held in Edinburg, aimed to forge a path of innovation, investment and economic resilience for the Lone Star State.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott received a standing ovation before delivering his keynote address at the summit held Aug. 17 in the Bert Ogden Arena.

    “The RGV is perhaps the fastest growing region of all of the regions across the state of Texas,” said Abbott. “You truly are the epicenter of the booming Texas economy. The Texas of tomorrow is going to be built here in the Rio Grande Valley.”

    He signed the Rio Grande Valley Alliance compact with 21 regional mayors and three county judges in front of a crowd of more than 450 business and community leaders, according to the Governor’s Office.

    According to Edinburg City Secretary Clarice Yvette Balderas, key details include expanding business development opportunities that will provide sustainable well-paying jobs, leverage unified assets to acquire essential services and resources, showcase the genuine image of the Rio Grande Valley and work collaboratively with small businesses to help them prosper, according to the Compact of the Alliance of the Rio Grande Valley Region of Texas. 

    During the summit, Adriana Cruz, the executive director of the Economic Development and Tourism Office, said regionalism works because companies are looking for locations that provide infrastructure and the proper workforce.

    “These partnerships across the region will continue to create new economic opportunities and spurring capital investment and job creation,” Cruz said. “It’s important for regional communities to pool their resources together, their talent and their efforts to help bring the most innovative companies and transformative new projects to the Rio Grande Valley region, because we’re stronger together.”

    In his address, Abbott highlighted the importance of unity and said the word captured the intent of the summit.

    “Behind me on the screen says “One Region One Voice,” and a word to sum that up is unity,” he said. “When you all come together as one unit, you are extraordinarily more powerful and more effective than you are working individually.”

    Abbott said that in his experience visiting and working with every region in Texas, he understood what it takes for economic development to be triumphant.

    “You look at the leaders, and you look at what stimulates success, and every time you see that success you see a region working in collaboration, working with unity,” he said.

    Abbott referenced Dallas County, saying it is recognized internationally for its economic development, and attributed its success to the Dallas region working as one unit.

    He used the City of Irving as an example of how unifying as one region is a win-win situation. Irving, as a municipality of the region, lands the most economic development projects in Dallas County, according to Abbott.

    “When the City of Irving lands a headquarters, it leads to more sales tax revenue for all the municipalities around it,” he said. “A lot of the people who may be working in the headquarters that’s located in Irving, Texas … live in the city of Dallas and they’re paying property taxes in those other cities.”

    Abbott said a trickle-down effect would occur by one city landing a big economic development project because it would bring the attention of business across the country to those other cities in the region.

    “Your primary goal by working together is to be that collective messenger to the entire globe,” he said. “… One of the prime real estate locations in the world to do business is the Rio Grande Valley, of the great state of Texas.”

    Abbott also spoke about the importance of providing employers with the resources to hire the most qualified candidates in the workforce.

    In this past session of the Texas Legislature, he said his office found multiple ways to invest in the workforce of the Rio Grande Valley, which included $53 million in funding for South Texas College and $12 million in additional funding for UTRGV’s School of Medicine.

  Most notably, his office has restructured how two-year colleges receive funding, which previously depended on the number of students enrolled.

“We are funding them on the basis on who they graduate and whether or not those graduates have the skills they need to immediately go into one of the high-paying jobs right here in the Rio Grande Valley,” Abbott said.

The governor said changing how two-year colleges are funded addressed the concerns of employers across Texas who want “better access to well-trained and well-qualified workers.”

He said students in these programs “don’t need a degree in some liberal arts masters.”

“They need skilled training so they can go immediately to work for an employer,” Abbott said.

In his address, the governor said he signed a law providing more than $18 billion in tax cuts in Texas, and school and property taxes were going to be slashed.

“But don’t think that means there’s any less funding for schools,” Abbott said. “The school funding that will be slashed by the property taxes is going to be made up by the State of Texas. … The funding that schools will receive will be at an all-time high.”

He also highlighted the adoption of the 2024 Unified Transportation Program, a record $142 billion total investment for Texas’ transportation infrastructure that will bring $3.6 billion in roadway improvement projects to the South Texas region, according to his office.“Today, Texas now has the eighth-largest economy in the entire world, and you are part of that success,” he told the audience.