The International Trade Alliance, a Spokane economic-development group, is organizing a 12-day trade mission to the United Kingdom in June in an effort to help businesses here make or enhance trade contacts in that European region.


The Spokane delegation, which currently is expected to include about 15 people, is to leave Spokane June 1 and will return June 13. While in the United Kingdom, it will make stops in Glasgow, Scotland; Belfast, Ireland; and London, England. The delegation will be made up mostly of small-business people from the Spokane area, as well as a couple of college educators. The participants will pay their own way.


While in Glasgow, the delegation will attend portions of the United Kingdom Annual Chambers of Commerce meeting, a three-day event thats expected to attract representatives from 600 European chambers of commerce. The alliance says Glasgow is one of the UKs leading areas of economic development.


From Glasgow, the delegation will travel to Belfast, in Northern Ireland, where it will be the guest of a government development agency called the IDB, and will tour local manufacturing facilities and learn about government grants available to U.S. companies looking for manufacturing facilities in the UK.


In London, the Spokane delegation will attend an event hosted by the Invest in Britain Bureau, where it will learn about other incentives available to U.S. companies that invest in Britain. It also will attend an event sponsored by Britains Department of Trade and Industry, which also will be attended by British companies that are looking for U.S. trading partners for new and promising technologies.


The trade alliance also is involved in a trip later this month to Asia. That trip, which is being organized in cooperation with Whitworth Colleges Institute of International Management, will take about 10 educators and businesspeople from Spokane to Korea, China, and Taiwan for 10 days. Two years ago, the alliance headed a trade mission to Japan.