Councillor Garth Frizzell, City Manager Kathleen Soltis, Mayor Lyn Hall,  Taipei Director General  of Economic Development William Chuang and his  assistants – photo submitted

Prince George, B.C. -City of Prince George Mayor, Lyn Hall is hoping to hold a second meeting with the Director General of the Economic Development office of Taipei.

The Director General visited Prince George last week   as part of his tour of Northern B.C. Mayor Hall says the visit was short, but the talks during that time were interesting “We talked about the airport and education. This international education exchange is growing almost by the week and there is a great deal of interest from all over Pacific rim countries.”

Mayor Hall says the airport piqued interest when the Director General learned about the length of the runway and what YXS is equipped to do “Particularly around cargo planes to fly in and out of here and to refuel, but not only that, but what does it look like   when there’s product here that maybe there’s some use for in Taipei? So I want to continue that conversation with them in Septemebr.

The visit falls on the heels of a recent visit from a second city in China which   is interested in developing a “sister city” relationship with Prince George. But Mayor Hall says that doesn’t mean there will be more trips to China “What it means is there’s interest from those countries, and they’ve been coming to BC and ultimately to Prince George, so we’re going to extend an open arm invitation to them and we want to meet with them. If there’s opportunity there we want to meet with them, but there’s no trips to China planned by this Council. Right now we’ve been fortunate enough to have a Chinese delegation come to us, the Taipei delegation so we’re keen   to visit with them and keen to find out what opportunities there are.”

Mayor Hall is looking to meet with the Taipei Director General of Economic Development while in Vancouver for the Union of B.C. Municipalities conference next month.