A January trade delegation to Georgia led by Premier Greg Selinger has yet to bear fruit but it has accomplished perhaps its most important goal -- getting Manitoba on the radar in the hottest market in the United States.

The group, which included Bill Morrissey, head of Yes! Winnipeg, Elliott Brown, the province's director of Canada-U.S. and international relations, and Diane Gray, president and CEO of CentrePort Canada, spent several days in Atlanta and the surrounding area in search of investment in Manitoba and export markets.

Atlanta-based officials said this week they are on a never-ending quest to tell the world their city is within a two-hour flight (or two days by truck) of 80 per cent of the U.S. market, ranks third in the country with 14 Fortune 500 headquarters, including Coca-Cola, Home Depot, UPS and Delta Airlines, Georgia's six per cent corporate income tax rate hasn't changed since 1969 and the state has net in-migration of 50,000 people a year. On top of that, the six southeast states have a combined GDP of $1.6 trillion, making the area the 11th-largest economy in the world.

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