Before participating in the first “Esto es Chile” seminar in Rancagua, the governor of the O’Higgins Region, Pablo Silva, and the regional presidential delegate, Susana Pinto, spoke with Desde la Redacción de La Tercera, where they addressed the region’s main challenges. The conversation is part of the Esto es Chile project, an initiative of Cadem, La Tercera and Inacap that seeks to reveal what the country’s regions think and feel. In that setting, both O’Higgins regional authorities agreed that unemployment is one of the main problems the sixth region faces today. Along with that, they valued the pride that O’Higgins residents feel in belonging to the area, a factor that would be key to promoting tourism, according to the authorities. The delegate noted that the region currently has “a significant unemployment rate, higher than the national one. We are at 10.8% unemployment and it is something that worries us,” she said. For his part, the governor lamented that “opportunities have always been in Santiago (...) we have rampant unemployment here in the region, it seems it is the region with the highest unemployment in the country and that, of course, frightens young people and they look for new opportunities in the regional capital.” “What we have always said is that we want to become the front garden of the Metropolitan Region and not the back yard, and for that, the public and private sectors must work together,” the governor said. In that sense, the governor proposed that there should be triggers to “generate greater job creation, perhaps industries like mining, which produces a lot of employment, also large agricultural companies, but let’s see where a lot of labor and a lot of technology are used.” “We believe the conditions are there, but something is happening with the O’Higgins Region, I don’t know if it’s the proximity to the Metropolitan Region, but something is harming us by not exploiting everything we have,” Silva said. Along those lines, he noted that, in his view, “what we lack is having large industries.” For her part, the delegate explained that when it comes to jobs, one cannot think “only of Codelco, we cannot think only of Agrosuper. We need a productive matrix across the three provinces, and we are also working hard on everything related to tourism, I think that is our challenge for the future,” she said. In that sense, she highlighted that the O’Higgins Region has “natural riches from the mountains to the coast, but we clearly have challenges as well. We face connectivity challenges toward the coast (...) however, we need to strengthen that energy matrix, and we also have a problem with sanitary infrastructure.” Pichilemu Beach in the O’Higgins Region. la-tercera “As authorities, we have to promote that kind of actions and projects if we want to boost tourism more intensively in the future, for example. That is one of the challenges,” she said. The delegate also highlighted the support given to small and medium-sized businesses (pymes), however, she stated that many entrepreneurs “feel very alone.” “From the State, perhaps that accompaniment is lacking,” she said. Along those lines, she emphasized the importance of “decentralization.” As she explained, many young people migrate to Santiago in search of opportunities, and within the region they migrate to Rancagua, the regional capital. “Not everything is Rancagua,” Pinto insisted. “We also have to think about the Cardenal Caro province, which has some lagging areas, and also Colchagua, strengthening it through the communes of San Fernando and Santa Cruz, which is where our business centers are also located.” Regarding territorial migration, the authority noted that one of the hypotheses they have discussed suggests that “young people have perhaps watched their parents, who are farmers, small peasants in the area, struggle so much; that perhaps they don’t want to repeat that, it is also a generational issue.” “We also view with concern how some farmers prefer to rent or sell their land to install photovoltaic projects instead of cultivating it. We view with concern that fact, that perhaps it is more profitable today to have solar panels than to farm,” she said. The delegate acknowledged that authorities must take “responsibility for those pains, for those things that perhaps do not make as much sense to young people today and perhaps that is why they want to migrate.” Check out the full interviews here: