a. The Sister Cities program both in concept and practice has been a valuable program for encouraging cultural, educational and trade relationships between cities in the United States and cities in other countries;

b. This same concept has been applied to a sister state-province relationship between New Jersey and Zhejiang Province in the Peoples Republic of China since May 11, 1981, and has resulted in a number of successful cultural, educational and economic exchanges; and

c. As a means of furthering cultural, educational and trade relationships between this State and similar jurisdictions in other countries, it is important to build upon existing knowledge concerning sister city and sister state relationships and to aggressively seek to establish other sister state relationships.

L. 1987,c.334, s.1.