In 2023, California will become the world's fourth largest economy and the world's largest Sea of Cortés Region can take advantage of the interaction that already exists in the area known as the CalibajaHowever, to increase their potential, young people must be prepared and a functioning ecosystem must be created, he said. Rafael Fernández de Castro.
The director of the UCSD Center for Mexico-United States Studies participated in the Conversatorio Relación Bilateral México y Estados Unidos - Perspectivas desde el Mar de Cortés (Bilateral Relationship between Mexico and the United States - Perspectives from the Sea of Cortez)of the Summit 2022where he was interviewed by Federico Ling Sanz Closed.
"Already California is going to be the fourth largest economy. Let's not look for it, it's with California, besides this, California represents the future of the United States," he stressed.
The expert in binational issues stated that in what they call Calibajawhich is the northern region of Baja California and southern California, there is a very interesting interaction.
"There are more or less 150,000 people who work in San Diego, they sleep in Tijuana because they can't afford it, in other words, we are a hotel, but we are also a hospital and a dentist, so there is a fascinating integration," he said.
For example, he added, before the pandemic the United States had a deficit of more than 250,000 engineers, and afterwards, with so much digitalization in the world, the need increased to 1.2 million engineers.
"In the best of years, the United States graduates 40,000, 45,000 engineers, and many are retiring, however, they are taking great advantage of Mexican engineers," he said.
"There is a company in Carlsbad, north of San Diego, called Thermo Fisher, which is the company in the world that does the most experiments for scientists in the world and after Covid is in a huge boom, it is already listed on the stock market, it happens to have two large design centers, one is in Dubai, the other is in Tijuana, and in Tijuana there are already more than 400 engineers hired by Thermo Fisher. Another company called Insulet has already arrived and it also has more than 500 engineers hired".
Yes, there is a very important thing happening, but you need a functioning ecosystem, stressed Fernández de Castro.
"San Diego is already the third city in the United States in Life Sciences, first there is Cambridge, Massachusetts; then there is the Bay Area, in San Francisco; and San Diego is doing very well, it has extraordinary places like La Jolla Institute of Immunology, there the Covid-19 protein was discovered and thanks to that we have a vaccine and the scientist who discovered it is Mexican", he emphasized.
Growth in San Diego, he said, has the potential to beat Cambridge because it has Tijuana, but that ecosystem is needed.
"It seems to me that there is a very important issue of preparing young people, we need to prepare many engineers so that the region can reach its potential," he said.
The director of UCSD's Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies said that violence is an issue that worries him greatly, because it can scare away those who intend to invest in the region.