Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

NNSL (Sep 08/99) - Premier Jim Antoine will head a small NWT delegation on a Team Canada trade mission in Japan Sept. 11-18.

The federal government will pick up the bill for all expenses, although the NWT is set to host a $3,200 reception in Osaka to encourage business partnerships.

The NWT will also contribute up to $5,000 for gifts.

"This is an important step for us in developing relationships and contacts and hopefully that will result in concrete agreements down the road," Antoine said.

"(We will) build more awareness of the NWT and hopefully tourism will spill out of Yellowknife and into the other communities."

Antoine will be joined by his principal secretary Rick Bargary, Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development deputy minister Joe Handley, NWT Chamber of Commerce head Kevin Diebold as well as business representatives yet to be confirmed.

Antoine said the focus of the trip will be to encourage more tourism as well as to facilitate more agreements for NWT construction companies.

"We will be carrying info and brochures from different tourist destinations, communities and businesses in the NWT," he said.

Antoine cited how the Fort Smith firm Digha Log Homes has reached an agreement to construct pre-fabricated homes for the Japanese market before saying that this trip could prompt more business.

"The company has announced that it would be selling pre-fabricated log homes to Japan. They're testing (the market) and if they are successful there will be opportunities for more."

Anotine said the trip will provide for more discussions and contacts with the Prime Minister and all other premiers except for Manitoba Premier Gary Filmon and Saskatchewan Premier Roy Romanow who are both fighting election campaigns.

And the trip will give him an opportunity to follow up the recent premiers' conference and promote how the North is an emerging economy.

"Our revenue is minimal and our expenditures are very high so our Northern agenda is a very big issue," he said.

"We have an agenda for a new North that looks at our fiscal policy and the pressures on it from the social envelope such as health and social services, education, housing, justice and jails. This is putting a tough strain on our current financial arrangement with Ottawa."

Japan is Canada's second biggest trading partner, according to Antoine and the number of Japanese tourists to the NWT has increased exponentially in the past decade from almost none in 1990 to more than 6,000 last year.