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Hundreds of business leaders showed up to the Boise Centre to try to sell their products overseas. But, it wasn’t just any flag that standing next to the governor while he speaks – it was China’s.

China. A country the Governor says helped us go from 700 million dollars in international trade in the late 1980s to nearly $6 billion today.

"China buys just short of 700 million dollars from us now,” Governor Butch Otter says. “So, they're rapidly approaching a billion dollars. When we get to a billion three… we'll be one dollar of trade for every Chinese citizen."

But the focus less than one mile away at the Idaho Statehouse is Taiwan, where Senator Russ Fulcher is hoping to pass a resolution to honor the state's trade relationship with that nation.

"That's just something we want to develop. I mean, they've got a big market and they want to do business,” Fulcher says. “And so, to the extent we at the state level can reach out and encourage that and try to introduce them to Idaho suppliers, that's what we want to try to do."

The state's Director of Commerce, Jeff Sayer says reaching out to China and Taiwan is a key part of the state's strategy to help boost Idaho's economy.

"We need to be paying close attention to our relationship with them,” Sayer says. And we've had companies that have been very successful in China, and we want to continue to nurture that as best we can."

The strategy working with the two Asian nations is not likely going away any time soon.

"Our whole goal as a state is to help Idaho companies be successful,” says Sayer, “and international trade is an important part of any company's strategy. We are literally a global economy now, and we have to respect that."