en Español

WASHINGTON - Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo and Mexican Social Development Secretary Carlos Jarque Uribe today signed a joint declaration to promote cooperative efforts on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border on housing and economic development issues.

Cuomo and Jarque signed the declaration at HUD headquarters during a meeting of the Housing and Urban Development Working Group of the XVII U.S.-Mexico Bi-National Commission (BNC).

The Housing and Urban Development Working Group is one of 14 within the BNC mechanism, which the United States and Mexico established in 1981. The groups work on a range of bilateral issues, including housing, environmental pollution, immigration, labor, trade and transportation. Housing and urban development were added in 1991.

"This declaration builds on the agreement that the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Mexican Secretariat of Social Development (SEDESOL) signed last year in Mexico City to cooperate on housing and urban development issues," Cuomo said. "It pledges that in considering urban planning and development projects along the border, both our governments will emphasize cross-border programs that focus on mutually beneficial economic and community development opportunities."

The declaration also commits HUD and SEDESOL to:

• Increase their outreach and assistance efforts to states and cities along the border.

• Encourage the local jurisdictions on both sides of the border to cooperate in planning how to budget government and non-governmental funds and resources.

• Foster and promote long-term comprehensive planning and cohesive development strategies that reflect a regional perspective in assessing housing and economic development needs.

At the Working Group meeting, held after the entire BNC met at the Department of State, HUD Deputy Secretary Saul Ramirez and other senior officials from HUD and SEDESOL discussed planning and urban development along the border and the recent meetings held in Monterrey and San Francisco, and heard a summary from the 1999 conference on secondary mortgage market development in Mexico.

The HUD and SEDESOL delegations also discussed the establishment of a permanent bilateral consulting mechanism on housing finance issues, examined the possibility of a project to compare statistical information from both the U.S. and Mexican censuses, and discussed the first draft of an English-Spanish dictionary of housing and urban development.