Pataki To Travel To China, Japan To Encourage Trade
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Governor Pataki said yesterday he will head to China and Japan next month in an effort to boost New York businesses and expand trade opportunities.
A statement issued by Pataki’s office said the governor would be accompanied by his chief economic development official, Charles Gargano, a top Republican fund-raiser and former U.S. ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago.
The trip, running from September 15-23 and first mentioned in Mr. Pataki’s State of the State message in January, comes in the wake of the governor’s announcement last week that he will not seek a fourth term next year. Mr. Pataki is eyeing a possible run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 and the trip could help burnish his foreign policy credentials.
The governor has traveled extensively in Eastern and Western Europe, visited Israel and the Caribbean, and was part of a bipartisan contingent of six governors who visited Iraq last year. The trip to China and Japan would be his first to East Asia.
In China, Mr. Pataki will lead a trade mission that includes New York business leaders. They will visit Beijing and Shanghai. Messrs. Pataki and Gargano will separately visit Japan for several days at the beginning of the trip to meet with government and business leaders.
“It’s important that we broaden our continuing efforts to promote New York as the best place to do business in the 21st Century,” Mr. Pataki said. “Asia’s economy is the fastest growing in the world today, and New York companies stand to benefit significantly from the rapidly increasing demand in the region for the products and services made right here in New York.”
Mr. Pataki’s announcement said business people who joined the trade mission would be charged $5,000 per person for the trip. The state will pay for Messrs. Pataki and Gargano, as well as an as yet undetermined number of other state employees who will join the trip, said a Pataki spokesman, Kevin Quinn.
Senator Schumer, a New York Democrat who has led an effort in the Senate to impose harsh tariffs on China if they don’t change their monetary policy, urged Mr. Pataki to press Chinese officials on trade practices.
“Governor Pataki’s efforts to promote New York businesses in China are important because New York firms, like [soap producer] Marietta in Cortland, and many others, have been hit hard by unfair Chinese trade practices,” Mr. Schumer said.
