Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2002

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Tourism and Intergovernmental Affairs, to which was referred S.C.R. No. 161 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to authorize and request that Governor Benjamin Cayetano, or his designee, take all necessary actions to establish a sister-state affiliation with the municipality of Tianjin of the People's Republic of China.

The Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism submitted comments on this measure.

Your Committee has heard that currently there are sixty sister relationships between the State and counties of Hawaii and various other geographic regions. In an effort to determine the status of these sister relationships, the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism has organized a conference to be held in July 2002, and expects about twenty of these sister-affiliated regions to attend.

Your Committee commends the Department for this effort to determine how better to encourage and promote successful sister affiliations at both the State and county level, and urges the Department to use this opportunity to determine if there are sister affiliations that should be dissolved for any reason.

Your Committee recognizes that sister affiliations evolve over time and that completing the initial efforts to establish such affiliations may not be successful.

Your Committee has amended this measure accordingly, to add the following:

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Tourism and Intergovernmental Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee concurs with the intent and purpose of S.C.R. No. 161, as amended herein, and recommends its adoption in the form attached hereto as S.C.R. No. 161, S.D. 1.