Gov. Beverly Perdue is flying back from Asia today after a nearly two week expedition to try and lure new businesses to North Carolina.

Perdue is due back this evening after 14 hours of flight time from visits to Japan and China. In addition to corporate shmoozing, she visited schools to get a firsthand look at how those countries' education efforts compare with North Carolina. 

Yesterday Perdue attended a signing ceremony between the Shanghai Center for Disease Control and the Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences, in Research Triangle Park, regarding collaboration on tuberculosis research.

She is due back in the office tomorrow and will make her first post-trip public appearance at the North Carolina Awards ceremony Thursday evening at the N.C. Museum of History.

State commerce officials say Gov. Beverly Perdue's upcoming trip to Asia, which is being paid for in part by private benefactors, does not violate state ethics rules that forbid elected officials from receiving gifts.

Kathy Neal, spokeswoman for the state Department of Commerce, said in an e-mail to Dome that all travel costs for the state delegation will be paid for with an estimated $76,700 in taxpayer money. State funds will also be used to provide a van and driver, interpreters and business cards in both Japanese and Chinese.

Private donors, meanwhile, will pick up the $94,730 tab for hosting five functions in Japan and China, along with other promotional and entertainment expenses.

First Gentleman Bob Eaves, who is accompanying his wife on the trip, will pay his own way.

The delegation is scheduled to depart Thursday. For the record, the governor is flying commercial.

UPDATE: A spokesman for Gov. Perdue on Wednesday clarified a statement from earlier in the week, saying that the travel expenses for the state's first gentleman will be covered by the N.C. Democratic Party.

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Gov. Beverly Perdue plans to lead a two-week trade trip to China and Japan in the last half of October.

Secretary of Commerce Keith Crisco, who has been to China 16 times, will join Perdue on the trip, along with business leaders and regional economic developers from across the state. More than half of the costs will be covered by "non-state funds," according to Perdue's office. The state will pay about $82,000.

China is North Carolina's second largest trading partner. Japan is fourth.

"This trip is about building and sustaining relationships that create jobs for North Carolinians," Perdue said in a statement released this morning. "Doing business with Japan and China results in $3.6 billion a year in trade, jobs for 20,000 North Carolinians and more than $200 million in foreign direct investment."

More after the jump.

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U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge headed to the Pacific for his winter break travels.

Etheridge, a Lillington Democrat, joined a congressional delegation for a 12-day visit to Hawaii, Guam, Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand, Barb Barrett reports.

The group received a briefing from military leaders at the U.S. military’s Pacific Command in Hawaii. In Guam, they looked at infrastructure in place to receive 8,000 Marines being moved there from Okinawa, Japan, as part of an Army restructuring.

In Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand, Etheridge met with prime ministers and foreign ministers to discuss economic development and agricultural trade issues.

The group returned Friday.

U.S. Rep. Brad Miller voted against the genocide resolution.

The Raleigh Democrat, the only member of the state's Congressional delegation who is on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which voted this week to declare the Ottoman-Turkish killings of Armenians in 1915, in which 1.5 million people died, a "genocide."

Sitting a few feet from three survivors of the event, all of them women in their 90s, Miller said in the meeting he didn't think the United States currently has the international standing to offend an important ally such as Turkey.

Miller told Dome he didn't think the resolution would accomplish much.

"I wish we had the standing in the world that if we pass that resolution, Turkey would stop and examine the history of what happened and decide whether they should do something to come to terms with it," Miller said.

"But the reality is, in Turkey and the Muslim world generally, they will simply see the resolution as an insult and will be angry about it."

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