china in august. this was a very important visit. there is another next week. we saw last year a record growth of our people to people exchange. according to that temporary statistic, in the first nine months of last year, 1.0 7 million chinese tourists visited this country, the biggest increase of 27.7%. more than 2 million american people visited china, which means on average, every day, more than 9000 people are crossing the pacific. nowadays, about 160,000 chinese students are studying here. you have more than 20,000 american boys and girls studying

in china. we saw a new record of our bilateral trade. last year, america experted $167.70 billion to china, up by 19%. that makes china and america each other's second-largest trading partner. the state of california placed a large role in this relationship with china. the state of california experted $10.50 million to china, an increase of 19%, making california the largest exporter to china among all 50 states in this country. last year, california and kelly -- china and california

established an official sister relationship. since then, the contacts and exchanges between the state of california and the province of xuangzhou has been intensified. in particular, i would like to mention that san francisco made new contributions to the overall development of china-u.s. relations. last year, the state councilor and the chinese foreign minister, as well as dozens of chinese provincial players, visited this city. san francisco maintains frequent and many exchanges and full cooperation with your 30 year- old sister city, shanghai.

and the newly established city. san francisco has also become a hot spot for chinese investment. according to our statistics, last year, more than 13 chinese enterprises had great success with the chinese council general to erect in this area. that is double of the year before. last year, it was also a remarkable milestone for the local asian community in san francisco. mayor lee was elected as the first chinese american mayor of san francisco. [applause] a round of applause, again.

san francisco is well known for its cultural diversity, which makes this city so dynamic. we are very glad to see the chinese communities in san francisco have gotten along with other ethnic groups, taking part in the economic and social life of this city. they have made a great contribution. the have also made contributions to the friendship between china and the united states. on this occasion, i would like to extend my warm congratulations to the great people of san francisco. i appreciate what you have achieved in the past year. i believe that under the ministry of the dragon mayor, edwin lee, and the support of

the first chinese american president of the board of supervisors, mr. david chiu, san francisco will maintain prosperity, and gain more achievements in the year to come. and also, integration with china. a token of our congratulations. i would like to present a dragon to my elder brother, edwin lee, the mayor. i am a younger dragon. [applause]

mayor lee: thank you very much. thank you. >> thank you, mayor. thank you, counsel general. the board of supervisors reflects the increasing dominance of asian americans in government and politics. the sleeping dragon has awoken with four asian-american members of the board of supervisors, and the first asian american to serve as its president. please welcome president chiu, carmen chu, supervisor kim, and eric mar. president chiu: i wish you could see yourselves as we see you. we are chinese, japanese, and caribbean. we are south easton, southeast asian, and filipino.

i want to thank the leaders in our community who are here with us tonight, leaders of our benevolent associations, our business associations, and our commissioners. we cannot do what we do in city hall without all of you. we know we have come a long way. it was not long ago that chinese americans were excluded under our city laws. when japanese americans were interned. when filipino tenants were evicted from the international hotel. when the fbi investigated our community. for us to stand here now is amazing. i think finally we have enough asian americans to form our own dragon dance team. it would be a short dragon, but a dragon dance team nonetheless. we would not be here and be able to do that but for the support we have and the work we are all doing together. thank you all for being here, and a very happy lunar new year. [applause]

supervisor chu: today, i want to welcome you to city hall and wish you a happy new year. [speaking chinese]

[applause] may you have much luck and good luck in the new year. i would say more, but i may be speaking to myself. i want to congratulate our new year, the year of the dragon, which is a special year. i did not know that our mayor was a dragon. as many of you know, the fifth dragon that comes back is a special dragon. on this special year, i think it is particularly important that merely will be serving his first year has our first elected asian-american mayor here in san francisco. as david chiu said, there have been decades of history and organizing that has gone to strengthening our community and

bringing more political leadership to our community. i think it goes to show the immense amount of work that has gone into that. i want to congratulate our community in this new year. thank you. [applause] supervisor mar: happy year of the dragon, everyone. i wish i were a dragon. it is so nice to have counsel general gao and mayor lee here. i am a tiger. my daughter is a dragon, though. she will be breathing fire this year. if i look forward to moving forward with courage and strength for all our neighborhoods. thank you, everyone. >> i also want to recognize in the audience we have a couple

members of the board. supervisor scott weiner is here, and supervisor olague. thank you both for joining us. our next speaker is phil ting. since assuming office in july of 2005, he has worked to reform the assessor recorder's office and find new revenues in san francisco. please join me in welcoming assessor recorder phil ting. >> it is an honor to join our mayor and board of supervisors. i want to wish you all a happy new year and an incredible year of the dragon. hopefully, this suspicious time for us all -- we all are facing challenges with our local and national economy. so i hope it is a good year for us in terms of job creation, as well as economic growth. [speaking a foreign language]

thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you. our next speaker is the regional vice president of the external affairs for at&t, here in san francisco. at&t is proud to not only sponsor today's event, but to sponsor the chinese lunar new year parade this weekend. please welcome him. [applause] >> good evening, everyone. thank you jason, mayor lee, mrs.

lee, general gao. at&t is all about connecting people across the world. while most people think of that with a phone or a mobile phone, which also connect people through events like this, through the sponsorship of a beautiful dragon boat i can see lit up up there. that is gorgeous. we threw the switch on early tonight. thank you so much for letting us be part of your celebration. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, and think at&t for your continued commitment to our communities. finally, we have the chair of the asian american heritage month committee foundation. this is a dedicated leader in our asian american community. please welcome commissioner who claudine at chiang --

commissioner claudine chang. >> [speaking chinese] at the beginning of every year, whether chinese new year begins in january or february, the city and county sets a great example for the other major cities in this country in the way we celebrate lunar new year, and especially with the leadership of all the members and supporters and volunteers of the chinese chamber of commerce. we have seen so many years of the street fairs, the parades' that attract a quarter million people. we really have set an example

for the rest of the country. i want to congratulate everyone for their hard work. i look forward to seeing everybody this saturday at the parade. taking an example of the lunar utah -- lunar new year and how celebrate it, we talked about it lunar new year and chinese new year as the same period that are pretty much the same, but lunar new year is celebrated by many groups within the asian american community, including korean- americans, vietnamese americans, and many others. we want to celebrate the chinese new year every year, but also the occasion of asia pacific heritage month in grand style, and set an example for the rest of the country. this year, our theme is celebrating heritage, advancing education. we will be presenting three awards to distinguished individuals and organizations in the area us of advancing education.

the nomination is open to the public. we will have more information in the weeks to come. this evening, talking about history and culture, a reception for the ceremony. we have a calligrapher and a musician who will entertain us as part of tonight's celebration. [speaking a foreign language]

lastly, we have a special presentation. i would like to bring up commissioner and each one -- commissioner amy chuang. also representing -- i did not realize all of this. would you like to introduce the artist? this is a very special year of the dragon presentation. the artist.

[speaking a foreign language]

>> thanks, claudine. mr. mayor, i know you are pressed on time. thank you for being here tonight. your staff has asked me to call you back. i think you are late for a meeting. the work of a dragon. thank you, sir. tonight, we are honored to be with family, friends, and loved ones who help us celebrate this new beginning. we are also here with members of the elected family and special dignitaries. i want to acknowledge some of the other officials present in the audience. i know the mayor's wife is here. would you stand up? say hello. the director of civic affairs is here.

emily murase is here. police chief greg suhr, and the director of dpw. we also have the president of the police commission, mr. mazzucco. we have tiger mendoza, who sits on the school board. and we have the consul general of the philippines and the consul general of vietnam. we also have share of -- sheriff mirkarimi here, and treasurer cisneros. it is an honor on behalf of the city and county to celebrate such a cultural event as the lunar new year. this concludes tonight's ceremonies. please enjoy the reception that follows in the north light

court. thank you to moon star for providing delicious food. thank you to the youth at cyc for the amazing dragon dance. speaking [a foreign-language] thank you all. good night.

>> good morning, everyone. i am the director of the mayor's office of economic and workforce development. we are here to announce the 10- year lease for river bed at 680 folsom st.. 167,000 square foot lease. we have the mayor, ceo of river bed, the owner of the building, as well as david from jll to talk of the significance of this to the city. >> thank you, good morning. welcome to the super bowl of innovation. while we did not enjoy the other super bowl, we have been working

on hours. i have always referred to san francisco -- and we continue to do this -- as the innovation capital of the world. riverbed's decision to sign a 10-year lease and to work with the city to renovate a building here in south market, to make sure they are staying and growing here is a reflection of not only their interest in making sure they continue to find talent that exists in the city, but that the city, working with our state interests as well as our i.t. companies, continue to do everything we can to make sure they feel comfortable and are creating jobs. every time you hear about a major company like river bed making a decision like this that is very significant, this is their headquarters, but it is their global headquarters. to suggest a 10-year lease is

important. they have over 500 people working today. this additional new space than they have signed a 10-year lease for has 160,000 square feet that will allow riverbed to grow and potentially add over 650 additional jobs on top of their 500. i.t. work is growing in the city. certainly, we want it to grow. we have a lot of i.t. solutions to be had. riverbed's technology is important, allows technologies to have i.t. management's -- companies to have a i.t. management from the date of filing to storage, all those wonderful things that technology people will have a much better way to explain and i do. i do suggest to you that this

is, yet again, another example of how we are working with ceo's to make sure that we sit down and talk. it was literally last fall that we sat down. we knew they were looking, they knew they were growing. it was not going to be in some other place that we would lose them to. we had some great partners. we just came together very well and focused on what we could do to make sure they stayed here. they know there is talent here. that is not a question. but are there other things that stabilized their ideas come interest to work here long term, and growing here, as we have had that philosophy. we want i.t. companies to stay here and grow. as a result, we are evolving our

policies on a weekly basis to continue attracting companies like riverbed, making sure they feel comfortable. the end result is more people get employed. you will see numbers continue to go down in our unemployment rate. it is at 7.6%, but i am guessing that it will go down further, hopefully, with all the companies that are still talking to us about what we can do to help them. as we do, they are hiring left and right. it is exciting for me to join today with jerry, let him explain what it is they do, in a very detailed way. again, it is the team, what the city does to make sure we stay as the innovation capital of the world. thank you very much for allowing me to announce this. we will have a chance to visit their bed soon. i think, -- river bed soon. i think, once they get their

release started, they will move in in 2014, and then that goes until 2024. i hope to see them continue to grow. we will be down there cheering them on, understanding more about the involvement of their products. >> riverbed started in 2002 and it is exceedingly gratifying from where i stand to see a company of its size and stature in the technology world, make a decision to remain in san francisco and to grow its global headquarters here. with that, i want to introduce the ceo of your bed. >> thank you. it is exciting for us -- we just announced this internally to our employees on friday. we sent around a photograph of the new building. the new building. when you work in technology in