This is just great for Lenoir County and Kinston, ... It's going to help the economy and the tax base.

Things are looking real good for 2006. The economy is looking up. We have 29 projects going on now that represent a good mix of small and large companies that can create from five to 10 new jobs or a whole lot more.

Help for those who need it most is a cornerstone of the new Venezuelan economy under President Chavez, and this program, following similar ones in Massachusetts and the Bronx, is part of a new effort to increase regional integration.

Our goal, as reflected in our mission statement, is to help create a diversified, vibrant and sustainable economy through attraction and support of businesses meeting the vision and standards desired by city leaders. There is a whole lot to our department; we handle new business requests for information, answer questions about existing businesses and try to head people in the right direction to obtain the information they are looking for.

We want to continue to help train them and make then competitive in this global economy. And there is no better way to spend this money than on job training.

We started to make investments in the Illinois economy to help the Illinois economy evolve. We're starting to see the fruits of those investments now.