Tim must have taken over from Colin. Just stayed tuned for that big announcement.
IPG as part of history would be the announcement I would be most interest in.

I thought Mayors and councilman were elected to take care of matters within the city. Soooo, where is Pat Bell in all this industry building?

Do we really want a bunch of Chinese investors here?

Well, Pat Bell has been spearheading the sale of our lumber to China. If it was not for his effort, many of the sawmills would have not reopened, infact more would have been shuttered.

We might as well get China to invest in our country. Nobody else will.

If we continue on the road of all the nay sayers. Prince George will be reduced to 20,000 people and your home will be worthless. So becareful of what you wish for.

"I thought Mayors and councilman were elected to take care of matters within the city"

Would economic development not be part of that? As an aside, how do you think you perform the task of economic development if you aren't willing to leave your desk in City Hall?

I feel it is sad that China thinks of BC as "Vancouver". I can see it would take more than one trip and some persuading to convince them that we (Northern BC.) have huge resources to offer. If they keep plugging away at it, perhaps it will pay off.

NMG .... I would have an agent in China year round ...... :-)

If you were to tell West Fraser, Canfor, Carrier Lumber, Dunkley Lumber, etc that Pat Bell was spearheading lumber sales to China they would fall off thier chairs laughing.

These Companies have been selling lumber to China for over 20 years. They have sales offices located in China, Japan, Europe, etc; Dont be so naive as to suggest that these multinational, and local companies need Pat Bell, to sell their product.

Prince George may be the largest City in North Central BC, so what does that mean.?? We have a population of maybe 80,000 people. This is not a large City by any other measure except IPG.

It seems that all these trips take place, when China is having some sort of sporting events, games, etc; so I suspect it is as much about free travel, than it is about promoting business.

If this travelling to China was so important to BC and Canada, then why the hell are not all the Citys in Canada travelling to China, rather than Prince George, and maybe Vancouver. Surely these other Citys have as much or more to offer than we do. Or do they leave the selling of commercial business to the business interests where it belongs.

Our local people do not have the necessary skills nor do they have the authority to sell anything. In fact, if they try to get some Chinese companies locating here, and producing a product on the cheap at the expense of local business they might get their ass in a sling.

Have a nice day.

As a matter of interest Jiangmen China has been a sister city of Riverside California for many years. Riverside has a population of aprox 980,000, a tad more than PG.

Here is an interesting criticism of the sister city/twinning concept.

***The concept of sister cities has been criticized as an unnecessary and expensive endeavor for cities to take part in with little to no accountability or obvious signs of economic develoment resulting from the arrangement. Critics complain that politicians can use the twinning/sister cities as an excuse to take junkets***

I doubt if our politcians would do that, however it seems to be prevelant around the world. Are we the exception or are we part of the problem.???

"Surely these other Citys have as much or more to offer than we do. Or do they leave the selling of commercial business to the business interests where it belongs"

Put some key words into Google and you will find the mayors who travel to China on trade missions with a larger group. They are from all over the world of all sizes.

And, of course, there are some who get the same kind of negative feedback as here.

Here are just some:

Chicago http://www.worldbusinesschicago.com/news/mayor-daley-travel-china-and-korea-economic-development-trip-and-launch-%E2%80%9Cchicago-days%E2%80%9D-shanghai

Savannah http://www.worldbusinesschicago.com/news/mayor-daley-travel-china-and-korea-economic-development-trip-and-launch-%E2%80%9Cchicago-days%E2%80%9D-shanghai

Guyana http://www.stabroeknews.com/2010/news/stories/06/15/mayor-under-fire-over-china-trip

Toledo, Ohio http://www.toledoblade.com/article/20100914/NEWS16/9130418/-1/RSS

Atlantic City http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/communities/atlantic-city_pleasantville_brigantine/article_861b2f22-8498-11df-bd8d-001cc4c03286.html

Tauranga City, NZ http://www.tauranga.govt.nz/forums/tabid/840/forumid/6/postid/926/view/topic/Default.aspx

Northwest Indiana http://my.nwi.com/MayorCostasAsia/blog

New Orleans http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/07/new-orleans-mayor-quarant_n_212335.html

Hamburg, Germany – delegation of 50 to Shanghai World Fair in Spring 2010 http://www.expo2010.hamburg.de/np-pressemitteilungen/2294154/2010-05-28-buergermeister-reise-china.html

Kleve, Germany (population 50,000) http://stadt-kleve.de/C125739F002F4C92/html/C5E86DF460754105C12576B8003A902F?OpenDocument

Saving the best to last, Eppertshausen, Germany http://www.op-online.de/nachrichten/eppertshausen/bald-chinesische-fernseher-made-eppertshausen-821527.html

Rough translation of part of the article, the Chinese are EXPECTED to purchase approximately 10,000 square metres land for a pan-European distribution center of the TV Company to be established, in which up to 200 new jobs will be created.

The cost for the trip of 1,500 € will be paid by the town from the proceeds of land sale of 800,000 euros should the company’s plans work out.

The trip was offered to be paid by the Chinese company but the Mayor declined, since the arrival of new firms should be free of any suspicion of influence.
---------------------------------

"It seems that all these trips take place, when China is having some sort of sporting events, games, etc; so I suspect it is as much about free travel, than it is about promoting business."

Palopu, what do you think the purpose of trade fairs are? They are not places to go on rides, eat cotton candy, and watch Walt Disney 3D movies. There is actual real business going on. They are not put together for school outings. They are an international meeting place for a number of purposes, including networking for business purposes.

-----------------

If you want to compete in this world, you got to:
1. get off your ass!!!!
2. understand the difference between a junket and doing business.
3. understand that cities have become businesses.
4. understand that politicians play a more important part in some countries than we might be used to.

The first thing in looking at whether a community wants to twin with another one is to figure out what the key purposes are. Without that one will not know what success will look like when it happens.

When I look at the video prepared by PG, it was not made very clear what the purpose would be, especially not why Jiangmen was proposed. So, from that I think we are rather new at this.

Here is what Windsor, Ont. has available on their site.
http://www.citywindsor.ca/001414.asp

Number one on the list of 7:

"Request for twinning should be community driven, supported by a formal organized cultural/ethnic association and must demonstrate that a sustainable relationship can be maintained"

I would agree that is the most important. Without cultural exchanges, the relationship is likely to fail.

Those who believe such processes are junkets either do not know what such a relationship is supposed to accomplish or they are observing people who are the leaders who do not know what such a relationship is supposed to accomplish.

"As Mayor Rogers told Opinion 250 earlier this week, there are questions about things like financial commitments and the benefits of twinning that must be explored before there is any final decision."

That is a very realistic outlook by the Mayor. I think to cut it short at this early stage or to say we got an agreement ready to go would each have been wrong. It would be like getting married after a first date. :-)

This twinning concept is all BS.

So is the fact that little Cities like Prince George go to China and try to pretend they are big players. Pure unadulterated BS. The Mayor and most of those travelling with them would have trouble getting their passports, and finding the bloody Airports. How is it, that a person who was nothing more than a Councillor, for a number of years, all of a sudden is a big player on the world stage???

Where do they get all this insight and intelligence. Fact of the matter is they dont have any. They are small players in a big field.

If we were to sit the Mayor and Councillors down, and ask them the name of the CEO's of the major lumber corporations, in BC. What they produce, and where they sell their product, and how it gets to market, they couldnt answer the questions.

In all the years that I worked for Major companies, I have never seen a Mayor or Councillor inside the gates of these Corportations. The only time you would see them would be outside the gates during an election year, or invited to a project opening.

The World Winter Cities Association for Mayors was supposed to have it Mayors conference in Prince George in 2010 just prior to the Olympics. However once Kinsley left, this subject was dropped, and it has never been discussed since. Why is that?? Kinsly was one of the officials on the executive board.

The Conference was to have at least 300 delegates come to Prince George. What happened. ????

For all the times that Kinsley went to China, I havent heard of any benefits from these trips. Same thing applies to the trip to the Torino Olympics.

We can write all we want about various and sundry things going on around Canada and the world, but at the end of the day we come back to what the little old lady in the hamburger joint yelled.

***WHERES THE BEEF***

Remember the old saying. Shoemaker stick to your shoes. The same thing applies to the Mayor and Council. Stick to looking after the day to day mudane business of running the City, and leave the world travelling to those better equipt to handle it.

If the Mayor and Council want to travel then they should get a job as an airline steward, or some such job.