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On Wednesday, September 8^th, Sagamore welcomed a group of Indiana mayors to hear Lt. Governor Becky Skillman highlight her recent agricultural trade mission to Zhejiang Province, Indiana’s sister state in China. The event signals the formal launch of Sagamore’s “Mayors’ Roundtable Initiative,” an effort to serve as a link between Indiana mayors and potential trade relationships in China.

In 1987, then Indiana Governor Robert Orr initiated a sister-state relationship between Indiana and China’s Zhejiang Province. Twenty-three years later, nine Indiana cities—Muncie, Anderson, Bloomington, Franklin, Indianapolis, Valparaiso, Elkhart, Fishers, and Marion—are pursuing sister-city relationships.

Sagamore Institute has played a key role in fostering these partnerships. In 2006 Sagamore’s president Jay Hein signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Zhejiang Academy of Social Sciences (ZASS), a sister “think tank” in Hangzhou, China, for the purpose of exploring unique import and export opportunities between the two states.

“Sagamore’s research partnership with ZASS is a critical building block in establishing a 21^st-century trading partnership between Indiana and China,” said Hein.  “Our research will identify promising investment opportunities in both places and our events will forge lasting partnerships among business and government leaders.” 

While in China in June, the Lt. Governor delivered Sagamore’s part of a joint study to ZASS. She also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the government of Zhejiang to continue agricultural trade efforts between the two states.

“Indiana and all our cities stand to benefit from China’s growing population and economic success,” Skillman said. “It would simply be bad policy for a state like Indiana to ignore a country that consumes more grain, meat, coal, and steel than any other country in the world.”

 See full event detail.