Gov. Benigno R. Fitial left yesterday morning for Shanghai, China, on a personal trip that will also include attending a tourism conference set for yesterday and the launching of additional charter flights to the CNMI on Thursday, the administration said. This comes less than two weeks after Fitial returned from New Caledonia on official business. <\/p>\n
Press secretary Angel Demapan said that Fitial is on personal leave and Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos is the acting governor until Fitial\u2019s return at the end of the week.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough Governor Fitial is on a non-government funded travel, he plans to attend a tourism related conference that will be promoting the CNMI as a tourist destination for Chinese travelers,\u201d Demapan said.<\/p>\n
While the governor is in Shanghai, \u201cFitial will also make himself available to any investors that may express interest to do business in the CNMI.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn these challenging times, Governor Fitial continues to embrace all potential investments that will prove beneficial to enhancing and reinvigorating our ailing economy,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The governor also received an invitation on Friday from Century Tours-Shanghai and Tinian Dynasty Hotel to the Sept. 22 launching of additional charter flights from Shanghai to the CNMI via Sichuan Airlines.<\/p>\n
Demapan said that Fitial arranged his trip in order to also have time to attend the tourism conference yesterday. \u201cSo since he is already there ahead of this opportune flight launch, the governor also plans to attend this event.\u201d <\/p>\n
[B]Travels since January[\/B]<\/p>\n
When asked about the administration\u2019s response to criticism that Fitial\u2019s off island trips have become too frequent, Demapan said when the governor is off island, \u201che\u2019s taking care of official business that is critical to the CNMI.\u201d These include meeting with federal officials and luring investors to the CNMI.<\/p>\n
Fitial returned from New Caledonia on Sept. 6, after backing the CNMI\u2019s bid to host the 2017 Mini Games. The CNMI lost to Vanuatu.<\/p>\n
In August, he went to Alaska and California.<\/p>\n
That trip came barely two weeks after the governor returned from almost a month of off-island trips for personal and official business in Japan, the U.S. mainland and Pohnpei in July. <\/p>\n
On Feb. 22, Fitial left for Washington, D.C. on official business up until early March, when he went on medical leave in California.<\/p>\n
In January, Fitial left for Hong Kong and Taiwan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gov. Benigno R. Fitial left yesterday morning for Shanghai, China, on a personal trip that will also include attending a tourism conference set for yesterday and the launching of additional charter flights to the CNMI on Thursday, the administration said. This comes less than two weeks after Fitial returned from New Caledonia on official business. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}