This Saturday, the inauguration and traditional ribbon-cutting ceremony of the 40th National Citriculture Festival took place. Mayor Enrique Cresto and the president of the Concordia Citrus Growers Association, Cecil Taylor, formally inaugurated the Festival, which was revived last year and has already been visited by thousands of Concordia residents and tourists alike. The mayor pointed out that "we must work on a major political agreement" to achieve the recovery of the flagship activity of our region, and called for work to begin on a tax exemption that benefits the development of investments in regional economies.
Cresto recalled that in the 1960s, under the Presidency of Arturo Frondizi, one of the most important citrus companies in the city benefited "from total tax exemptions for eleven years so that they could invest," which is why "we must work on a great agreement between Municipalities, Provinces, and the Nation, with all political parties, and launch a plan so that all regional productive investments have municipal, provincial, and national tax exemptions. Because that will be the only way for us to get out of the financial cycle" which will allow "a great development of our country," he highlighted.
In his remarks, the Mayor stated that "we must recover the citrus activity, which is so important for our city and which was the engine of development for our province with 23 thousand hectares of citrus" with producers who work very hard to make this happen, "as was my grandfather, the former governor Enrique Tomás Cresto."
"There is articulated work here and we are doing everything we have to do, and we do it with passion. And those who do not have passion are left behind, because we wear the Concordia jersey and work strongly in this regard, together with the institutions that feel the same and want to transform the city," he remarked.
Along the same lines, Mayor Cresto remarked that, coincidentally with this festival, the 20th anniversary of the creation of the Concordia Flag and the two years of his administration are being commemorated, which began during a complex moment due to the floods but which meant the impetus for projects, many of which are already underway, such as the new Drinking Water Plant, or those that are on track, such as the local bridge with Salto; the international cargo airport in our city and the barge port in the neighboring Uruguayan city.
Accompanying the inauguration of the National Citriculture Festival were the Events Coordinator of the Government of Entre Ríos, Eduardo Rodríguez, representing Governor Gustavo Bordet; National Deputy Alicia Fregonese; provincial deputies Joaquín La Madrid and Alejandro Bahler; the vice-mayor and president of the Deliberative Council, Armando Gay; Dr. Mariano Caprarulo, Executive Director of the Chamber of Citrus Exporters of the NEA (CECNEA); the president of the Argentine delegation of the Salto Grande Joint Technical Commission, Roberto Niez; council members Alberto Zadoyko, Nicolás Moulins, and Magdalena Reta de Urquiza; the Cabinet Coordinator of the Municipality, María de los Ángeles Petit; the Secretary of Tourism, Alfredo Francolini; the candidates for the Festival Queen and the National Queens specially invited for the occasion; together with representatives of different institutions of the city, other authorities, and the general public.