Mexico City, Mexico — Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon and United States Ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, led the Strategic Border Infrastructure Forum held Thursday.
The Thursday meeting was held in Tijuana, Baja California, with a goal to promote 13 projects by Mexico and the United States to modernize the existing infrastructure and build new ports of entry.
In his press release, Ebrard said the projects will contribute to the economic growth of the cities along the border strip of both countries.
The meeting was also attended by the Governor of Baja California, Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmeda and the Under Secretary of State for the Office of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Todd Robinson.
They discussed 13 border infrastructure projects between Mexico and the United States, which when complete, will boost economic growth and improve living conditions for people living in the border region.
In particular, the Mesa de Otay II–Otay Mesa East International Crossing project will generate a new high-tech port of entry that will decongest the area’s crossing system and significantly reduce inspection times.
Likewise, on the Chihuahua-New Mexico border, the modernization of the San Jerónimo-Santa Teresa Crossing and its access roads will speed up the crossing and represent an alternative to relocate the commercial traffic that currently crosses the Ciudad Juárez-El Paso urban area.
Foreign Minister Ebrard pointed out that integration between Mexico and the United States is underway “thanks to production processes and high-level talks to accelerate our supply chains and production capacity in the pharmaceutical, medical, electromobility and others.”
“As a result of the recent conversation that President López Obrador had with President Biden, Mexico has made some decisions (approved projects) […] this is an investment to date of $700 million dollars approved and all are already in stages of varying degrees of progress,” he emphasized.
The objective and the instruction of both presidents, he pointed out, is that “by the end of 2023, everything that I have just mentioned is working […] because they want this border, which is one of the the busiest in the world.”
