MISSION, Texas - The Council for South Texas Economic Progress or COSTEP began 2025 with a bang.
COSTEP CEO Adam Gonzalez said the group has been juggling many hats since the year began with lots of interest from potential investors to the region, in addition to the events that the group had already planned for the year.
“We’re getting a lot of traction,” Gonzalez said. “They (the prospective investors) are coming in to us directly with almost no time (for our team) to travel these days. Because we’re getting people that want to meet, that want to collaborate.”
Gonzalez said the heightened level of interest is making it easier for his group to promote the region and attract the best investment to the region.
During an in-depth interview with the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service, Gonzalez shared some of COSTEP’s plans for the year.
“I know we have some good things planned for this year. We plan our three Fam (Familiarization) Tours, as many Quick Tours as we can muster and continue to work leads,” he said. “We will be visiting about six or seven site selector events, and we’ll be publishing in the site selector magazines again as we did last year, which have an international reach.”
Gonzalez said he is also gauging reaction from key stakeholders for Regional Strategic Plan he is keen to implement.
COSTEP conducts many what it calls Quick Tours. However, he said there are also Fam Tours planned for later in the year.
“What we really like to do with Quick Tours is, if a company is interested in our region, and we find a suitable location or two suitable locations for what they’re trying to produce, we will invite them to come down. We’ll host them,” he said.
“So, the first one that we had was last week. It was a collaboration with a group out of Matamoros that we’ve been working with since last year. A group of businessmen, manufacturing operation owners, approximately ten of them, that had contacted us last year and wanted to see how we could collaborate in helping more industry settle in the region. We definitely want manufacturing industry to come to our region.”
The group had conducted operations in the region many years ago, Gonzalez added.
“Probably in the early ‘90s,” he said. “And now this company is looking to relocate. They were very impressed with presentations from both sides (of the river). And what they like is the fact that we’re all collaborating as a group.”
Gonzalez said different entities were brought into the presentation.
“We brought in a school, we brought in one of our sponsors as well to meet with them and present,” he said. “We also brought in, again, the Mexico side and the U.S. side. We brought in an EDO (economic development organization) specific to where they want to relocate. We had a whole program for them here, and they also had a program on the Mexico side that was really organized. That one was not organized by COSTEP, it was primarily organized by this investment group from Matamoros.”
Fam Tours are more of a site selector-oriented event, Gonzalez said.
“That is where we try to bring in between three to seven site selectors and tour different parts of the Rio South Texas region,” Gonzalez said. “And as you know our Rio South Texas region, we divide it into two smaller regions, one being the Rio Grande Valley region and the other being the Laredo region.”
Gonzalez said COSTEP recently hosted a Quick Tour that looks promising.
“We had a quick tour this past week and it was a company; we’re calling it ‘Project Maple’. It’s a company from out of the state, but it’s in the states, the northern states,” Gonzalez said. “They were very interested in the dynamic that we have here, the binational manufacturing dynamic. The manufacturing process that produces products for schools and for winter sports and things like that.”
Binational manufacturing is the ability to manufacture in one country and distribute in another. It is something the company is very interested in. However, with President Trump’s tariff announcement Gonzalez said this company’s interest may change.
“Definitely the tariffs would play a role in their decision,” Gonzalez said. “They would have to go back to the drawing board and check out what the business model would look like with a 25 percent tariff on imports.”
Gonzalez said the tariffs have definitely thrown a curve ball.
“If they get implemented. There’s a lot of worry about,” Gonzalez said. “If people slow down their import and export business, what happens? They suffer. I don’t know what Trump is thinking. I mean, especially with Mexico and Canada, we have an agreement (USMCA). I can see those tariffs with China and with Russia because of the political environment with them.”
But despite all the uncertainty, Gonzalez said COSTEP has seen a rise in interest in conducting business in the Rio Grande Valley.
“We’re seeing a lot of interest in the lower Valley right now,” Gonzalez said. “Even last year, a lot of the interest of folks that were reaching out and the leads that we were working, they’re being drawn to the Port (of Brownsville).”
Gonzalez said that as a regional economic development organization COSTEP promotes the whole entire region.
“We promote the proximity of every community. Maybe not Laredo but to the water ports that we have in the Port of Brownsville and Port of Harlingen, we definitely try to promote that, even in McAllen, Edinburg, Mission, Pharr. They definitely benefit from the water ports as well. But we’ve seen a lot of interest in the lower Rio Grande Valley area, which is primarily Brownsville and Harlingen, and that area.”
Texas Governor Greg Abbot has been very supportive of the region Gonzalez shared.
“The times that I’ve spoken to him and met with him he’s been very supportive of our region,” Gonzalez said. “He feels that our region has great opportunity to benefit from a lot of the businesses that are trying to nearshore. So, we need to continue working with the governor. The governor believes in the state of Texas, I believe in the state of Texas, and we just have to work together as a region to help attract those companies.”
Gonzalez continued: “I know we still get a black eye with the immigration issue, with the violence issue, but business is still going on. People are still crossing; people are still working in Mexico that live here. People are still working here that live in Mexico.”
One of the reasons that interest in the Valley area has grown, Gonzalez believes, is the mutual collaboration shared by everyone in different industries that come together during national and international conferences.
“I think we’ve garnered a lot of traction in the region about being regional,” he said. “There was a lot of presence in (the) Select USA (conference). There were a lot of representatives from our region. Also, this year, I’m going to be heading down to Select USA in Mexico City (Feb. 25-26) to promote oue region there,” Gonzalez said.
“I know that many EDOs have presences in other conferences. Just the fact that we’re all trying to promote the region as a destination for business is good. It’s always been done but it seems like we’ve garnered a lot of traction in the last couple of years and I hope that traction remains steady, and we can all help each other, and we can help our communities by attracting business to our region.”
Gonzalez said the dynamic of the US-Mexico border offers a unique aspect to doing business in the region.
“We have families living on both sides of the border and we have people working on both sides of the border. So, we need to make sure we have the data correct so that we can educate others about what’s happening in our region. And with the (current news) climate, that it’s not overinflated by the media.”
Looking to the future, COSTEP is hoping to entice global investors in different industries.
“We’ll entertain anything in the manufacturing, the new high-tech industry,” he said. “Currently, we do lack some infrastructure for some of those bigger projects, but we are suited for much smaller projects. And even the smaller projects are, I think, good for our region. We have to get started somewhere. We do have a footprint in manufacturing here.”
