THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 29, 1994 TAG: 9406290367
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEC KLEIN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940629 LENGTH: JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
Susan B. Allen set out Tuesday on the first full day of an overseas mission unprecedented for a governor's wife. She spent the day promoting Virginia, meeting local dignitaries and enjoying the sights, which included descending into a 700-foot-deep mining shaft in Gold Reef City on the outskirts of Johannesburg.
{REST} More than 8,000 miles from home, Allen is leading a 22-member delegation on a seven-day jaunt across an exotic land where antelope graze the roadside but where, until April, the black majority was shut out of the political process.
Capitalizing on the historic changes unfolding all over the region, Virginia government and business leaders also were dispatched to Gaborone, the capital of neighboring Botswana.
There, they toasted the opening of Virginia's only trade office on the continent, announced last year by then-Gov. L. Douglas Wilder.
Over lunch Tuesday, Botswana's minister of commerce and industry diplomatically noted the absence of Gov. George F. Allen.
``We were hoping he would make it, but be that as it may. . . . We appreciate what it (the trade office) means for Botswana,'' Minister P.H.K. Kedikilwe said. Then he added: ``The fact that the governor's wife is in the delegation also communicates something to us.''
The Allen administration has given the Botswana trade office, leased at no cost, one year to prove its worth in boosting trade and investment between Virginia and southern Africa.
``I'm not jumping up and down worrying about the one year (trial period),'' said J.C. Polan, a Boston native and 14-year Botswana resident who will open the office July 1.
Polan said it was premature to project Virginia's windfall in doing business with Africa. But he said he would forge contacts and act as ``the eyes and ears in a very strong emerging market.''
Virginia has already established a foothold. Last year, the state exported $54.1 million in goods and services to South Africa, making it Virginia's third busiest partner on the continent, behind Egypt and Morocco.
Now, with the dismantling of the discriminatory apartheid social system, the Allen administration is joining an increasing number of corporate citizens in embracing President Nelson Mandela's leadership in South Africa.
``I think it's fair to say that the sky's the limit . . . with the right marketing,'' said Hugh D. Keogh, president of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce.
Gov. Allen canceled plans laid by Wilder for a trade office in Senegal, but Virginia maintains international offices in Brussels and Tokyo. The administration is also contemplating business prospects in Latin America and Eastern Europe, and the governor is planning a trade mission of his own to Canada and Mexico next month.
``International trade is a key focus,'' said E.W. Davis Jr., director of Virginia's Division of International Trade and Investment, who led the South Africa mission.
The first lady's excursion was prompted by USAfrica Airways, a new Virginia air service, which is paying most of the travel and accommodation costs for the delegation.
``I just think it's very exciting,'' Susan Allen said early Monday before touching down in Johannesburg. This is the first major gesture in what she has promised will be a personal crusade to boost economic development throughout her husband's tenure as governor. ``We have the potential,'' she said, ``to open a lot of new doors.'' by CNB