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The Western Cape government's trip to California and Florida was enormously successful: in both cases it will lead to investment, trade, tourism and the transfer of technology and skills into the Western Cape.

Leaders in both California and Florida impressed us with their enthusiasm for, and commitment to building their relationships with our province.

But in both cases the job has only just begun, signing agreements and meeting the political and business leadership overseas can only result in sustainable improvement in the lives of people in the Western Cape, if we put in place a systematic programme to follow up each and every opportunity we have created.

Therefore, the next crucial phase for us is to establish bilateral working groups between ourselves and both California and Florida to pursue and make concrete the gains from our trip.

For California, we will establish seven groups comprised of leaders from politics, business and civil society to oversee the development of our relations in trade and investment, tourism, education, agriculture, social services, information technology and public management.

For Florida, we will work with Secretary of State Katherine Harris to establish groups on arts and culture, education, agriculture, and tourism. Crucially, we will continue to engage with Enterprise Florida, which is a public/ private organisation which replaced Florida's Department of Commerce and which already has a relationship with Wesgro.

In addition to our interaction with the State governments of California and Florida, we also engaged with some very impressive local leaders. Mayor Willie Brown of San Francisco, Mayor Glenda Hood of Orlando and Mayor Alex Penelas of Miami are keen to involve their cities with the Western Cape and with Cape Town. I will thus be holding discussions with Cape Town's Mayor, Peter Marais, to find ways to pursue these opportunities.

The government of the Western Cape has opened the door. We will continue to work at improving relationships, creating new opportunities and connecting people.

But it is now up to business and other organisations in the Western Cape to grasp the opportunities that have been created.

My MECs will give individual reports on the results of our trip to the United States. Before they do I wish to make a very clear statement on the Western Cape's policy on international relations.

THE WESTERN CAPE'S INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

We believe our primary responsibility is to improve the lives of people in the Western Cape.

For this reason, we believe we have a responsibility to promote our province to the outside world. We need to create and make use of opportunities to stimulate investment and trade, learn from foreign experience and build relationships of trust and understanding with people from other parts of the world.

We believe that by pursuing this course of action the Western Cape is benefiting all of South Africa: our country needs every bit of exposure and promotion it can get.

Thus, our trip to the United States forms part of our larger programme of international outreach. Apart from our interest in America, we are also determined to strengthen our ties in Europe and in Africa. The Western Cape currently holds official agreements of co-operation with seven governments: Bavaria-Germany; Upper Austria, Austria; Florida-USA; Tunis-Tunisia; Shandong-People's Republic of China; Madeira, Portugal; Pusan, Korea; and St Petersburg-Russia.

The Western Cape's MEC of Finance, Business Promotion and Tourism, Leon Markovitz, under whom our inter-governmental relations programme falls, will thus be driving forward our international relations programme, which we believe has the support of the people of the Western Cape.

Contact: Riana Geldenhuys on 082 376 4709/ 021 483 3629

Issued by: Office of the Premier, Western Cape, 8 May 2001