The governors of Santa Fe, Maximiliano Pullaro, and of Corrientes, Gustavo Valdés, signed an agreement on Thursday to establish a river connection between Villa Ocampo and Bella Vista. The objective is to offer a vehicle and cargo transshipment service between both localities, with the purpose of favouring commercial exchange and productive integration.
During the ceremony, held in the city of Corrientes, Pullaro said: "It is an honour for us to be in the sister province of Corrientes. I want to thank Governor Valdés for all his management capacity to think of public policies that allow us Argentines to live better". He added that, as people from Santa Fe, "we have an important challenge, which is to bring better conditions of development and equality to the whole province".
The governor of Santa Fe stressed that "we have made a great commitment to work on regional integration and public works to generate equality and opportunities in each locality". He pointed out that it is essential to reactivate the Port of Villa Ocampo, "which was once very important for the province, but which ended up unused due to the lack of investment by the State".
Pullaro recalled that the planning of the works began with Miguel Lifschitz, continued with Omar Perotti and that now it is his turn to conclude "a very important work, which has to do with the bridges that allow us to get from Villa Ocampo to the Paraná". He highlighted, in particular, the Paraná Miní Bridge, "the most important", whose construction has already been completed, and the refurbishment of the port, in conjunction with the Municipality of Villa Ocampo.
In this regard, he said that the proposal to promote barges arose in dialogue with Valdés: "When we talked about these works, he immediately began to think about the idea of transporting trucks to reduce logistics costs in the Litoral Region. Also, to cross cars to shorten the journey, with an extremely important saving of kilometres". And he concluded: "Santa Fe and Corrientes are sister provinces with a very rich history. Our integration remains the same and our people will now be able to get closer in a much easier way. This will allow us to trade more cheaply and strengthen our productive system".
Meeting symbol
For his part, Valdés stressed that "with Santa Fe we have a great union, firstly commercial but also underpinned by history. We celebrate Santa Fe's initiative to build these bridges, which are within its territory, but symbolise our meeting".
The Governor of Corrientes recalled that "it has been more than 60 years since we were last united and today Santa Fe is making its resources available to make this possible". He also stressed that his province is moving forward with the definitive wharf and that it was agreed to "create an Executing Unit that has to do with the legal outcome and the allocation of real funds from both provinces in equal parts".
Valdés also expressed his aspiration for the link to be consolidated with major works: "We do not lose hope that tomorrow the Republic of Argentina will be able to create a physical link between Santa Fe and Corrientes with another bridge in the region. Hopefully we will have that possibility to generate development, trade and exchanges, as well as fraternal embraces".
The event was attended by the mayor of Villa Ocampo, Cristian Marega, and other provincial and municipal authorities.
The signed agreement establishes the goal of promoting economic, social, educational, health, tourism, scientific and cultural development. To this end, an agreement will be formalised with the Argentine Army for the provision of heavy transport barges and the construction of jetties. The management will be in charge of a Biprovincial Executing Unit, responsible for the execution of the plan.
