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PIP Proposes Economic Development Plan for Southern Region

By on October 2, 2016

Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) House and Senate candidates by accumulation, Denis Márquez and Juan Dalmau, respectively, proposed Sunday an economic development plan for the island’s southern region, concentrated in creating Puerto Rican venture capital.

The pro-independence leaders presented today their plan, affirming “it doesn’t seem ferable to refocus Puerto Rico’s economic development by adopting a Regional Development Strategy. This requires adopting legislation for every geographical region in Puerto Rico according to its potential for economic development.”

Juan Dalmau and Denis Márquez. (File)

Juan Dalmau and Denis Márquez. (File)

Both candidates emphasized in written declarations that in the southern region, for example, Port Las Américas should be the center for socioeconomic development in the entire region, through the establishment of added value zones, which would allow the creation of companies with Puerto Rican, international, or mixed capital that assemble, pack or transform products that arrive to Puerto Rico, with the purpose of selling them in domestic or foreign markets.

“This would generate hundreds of thousands of well-paid jobs,” asserted Dalmau, affirming the proposal “enables the development of our potential, maintaining capital in Puerto Rico for its reinvestment in our economy, contrary to the failed proposal of corporative subsidies to U.S. companies that take the capital out of the country.”

On the other hand, Márquez emphasized that the zone’s economic development must be made in balance with environmental preservation.

“Another crucial project for the south-western region’s sustainable development consists in designing a substantial part of the zone as a large project for Green Infrastructure. From Laguna las Salinas in Ponce’s El Tuque, including Islote Caja de Muerto crossing Peñuelas, Guayanilla, Yauco, Guánica, Lajas, and Cabo Rojo, lies one of Puerto Rico’s most important coastal strips,” he explained.

Márquez emphasized the importance of fighting against the ash deposit in Peñuelas, which threatens the zone’s health and environmental balance. “PIP legislators are committed to launching legislation that prohibits ash deposits as performed by the company Energy Answers Solutions, and order the Environmental Protection agency (EPA) to look for new models of solid product disposals,” he assured.

Dalmau and Márquez performed a regional caravan in celebration of the PIP’s 70th Anniversary, which concluded in Ponce. The caravans will continue in other regions throughout October, facing the general elections on Nov. 8.

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