Lexington, NC - The City of Lexington hosted four officials from the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Transport, the city of Pilsen and a non-profit agency from the Czech Republic on February 16th. The visit to Lexington was arranged by the Piedmont Triad Council for International Visitors and the Piedmont Triad Council of Governments under the sponsorship of the International Visitor Leadership Program of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
This was the first time Lexington has facilitated the International Visitor Leadership program. The officials came to Lexington to see the Lexington Home Brands Plant 1 Brownfields site and the plans for the Depot District. According to the visiting Czech officials, there are many former manufacturing and military installations that qualify as Brownfields sites in need of redevelopment in their country. The officials remarked that our 1850’s courthouse was “young”; they loved the pigs because they do cows in much the same way Uptown Lexington does the Pigs in the City project; they loved Lexington Barbecue; and remarked about how Lexington reminded them of the area where they live. It was a great experience listening to them talk about their home country.
The International Visitor Leadership Program annually brings to the United States approximately 5,000 foreign nationals from all over the world to meet and confer with their professional counterparts and to experience America firsthand. The International Visitors who came to North Carolina through the Piedmont Triad Council for International Visitors are among the participants in exchanges managed by the State’s Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The goal of this program, as with all of these exchanges, is to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and people of other countries.
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