Local officials forge ties as Chinese delegation visits

Interpreter Ping Xue, standing at left, joins former mayor of Leeds and the Thousand Islands Frank Kinsella, Leeds and Grenville Warden Mel Campbell, Chun'an County Deputy Mayor Yu Lixing, Brockville Mayor David Henderson and Westport Mayor Bill Thake (partially hidden) in a toast Sunday night at the New York Restaurant welcoming a small Chinese delegation to the area. RONALD ZAJAC The Recorder and Times

Boating and beer are two of the immediate interests of a small Chinese delegation that stopped by the local area Monday to pay a visit to a sister community.

The six-member delegation, headed by Chun'an County Deputy Mayor Yu Lixing, was to spend part of Monday touring sites in Brockville and elsewhere in the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville before proceeding to an unrelated visit to New York City.

The group is from the Thousand Island Lake region of China, which signed a friendship and co-operation agreement with Leeds and Thousand Islands Township in 2009.

A delegation that included local mayors, municipal officials and businesspeople toured the Chun'an region in June 2010, and this stopover is a reciprocal visit, Brockville economic development director Dave Paul said Sunday night as local officials welcomed their Chinese counterparts with a dinner at Brockville's New York Restaurant.

Paul said the group will tour industrial sites in Brockville and developments along the waterfront, while its itinerary will also include a visit to the Rockport Boat Lines.

In particular, the economic development director was eager to show his visitors the Abbott Laboratories building in Brockville.

The company is slated to close in late 2013 or early 2014, and while city officials do not yet have the green light from Abbott Canada to market the plant to potential new investors, Paul said he wants the Chinese delegation to think of the food-audited facility as a potential future location for one of their local firms looking to invest in Canada.

Paul notes a brewery in the Chun'an region has expressed an early interest in locating here, and the Abbott facility would be ideal for such an operation.

Speaking with the help of an interpreter, Deputy Mayor Yu said the delegation is heading to New York to learn about that metropolis's urban planning practices.

But Yu, who used his speech at the start of the dinner to invite local officials back for yet another visit to China's Thousand Island Lake region, said a key reason for stopping in its sister Thousand Islands area is to visit the local boat line and study its management practices.

Developing a tour boat industry is a key part of boosting Thousand Island Lake's profile in China, said Yu.

"In the next five years, we're trying to develop the southern islands to be the number one lake tour boat business (in China)," he said. "We want to come to learn."

Meanwhile, Yu said the brewery in his home region is gaining in notoriety, and the delegation will explore the "possibility of co-operating" with local officials on the Abbot plant.

The Chinese regional government's goal is to build up the brewery's hometown as a tourist area centred on the brewing, then possibly expand to Canada once that has been achieved, said Yu.

United Counties Warden Mel Campbell, who joined the delegation to China in 2010, said the local group was "treated like royalty" and it is important to extend the friendship between the two regions.

Drawing more tourists from the sister Thousand Islands region could be one immediate benefit, said Campbell, but investment in the Chinese market could be another.

"I still believe that there is an opportunity to gain exposure to the Chinese people," said the warden.

"Nothing attempted is nothing gained."