US governors to visit China for business ties

Updated: 2011-10-14 15:43

(Xinhua)

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SEATTLE - Washington State's Chris Gregoire will lead a delegation of US state and territorial governors on a trade mission to China next week, her office announced Thursday.

Gregoire and the governors of Georgia, Hawaii, North Carolina, Guam and Northern Mariana Islands will arrive in Beijing next Tuesday to participate in the second China-US Governors Forum.

The forum, co-convened by the US National Governors Association (NGA) and the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, will focus on economic development and job creation, according to the NGA.

"Strong bilateral relationships among the United States and China also support a more predictable market environment where access to capital is strong, workforces are skilled and educated and regulatory and business processes are generally transparent," Gregoire said in the statement.

"Many governors have been on trade missions to China to examine opportunities to increase trade and investments to their states -- both activities designed to create jobs," she said.

China is already Washington State's No. 1 export destination.

According to the foreign trade statistics released by the US Census Bureau, the value of Washington's exports to China reached 10.3 billion US dollars in 2010, almost a 20-percent share of the state's exports.

In the past decade, Washington State's exports to China have increased more than 300 percent, statistics show.

The governors' trip to Beijing is the result of Chinese President Hu Jintao's January visit to the United States. During the visit, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi signed a memorandum of understanding supporting the establishment of the China-US Governors Forum.

The first forum was held at the NGA annual meeting this summer in Utah, where four Chinese provincial leaders participated.

"The China-US Governors Forum provides an invaluable opportunity to discuss job creation and develop new economic opportunities that benefit us all for the future," said Gregoire, a former chair of the NGA.

"The breadth of those opportunities should capture not only traditional business-to-business relationships, but also travel, tourism and cultural exchanges," the governor said.