Hon. Mayor Ras J. Baraka:  We need economic growth and job creation.  We need a trained workforce to fill those jobs.  We believe that manufacturing and advanced manufacturing is a large component of that growth.  We are going to organize our resources to begin investing and expanding our manufacturing base and training our workforce to accept those jobs.  In the first week of May we are hosting a Manufacturing Conference partnering with Mitch Cahn of Unionwear,  NJIT and the NJ EDA to help identify best practices, develop a point person from City Hall and to help grow the manufacturing industry in our city.  We are also asking that every major anchor corporation, business and public entity begin to identify their partners that they do business with and begin with the help of economic incentives from this city to encourage manufacturers to relocate their shops to Newark as we have a stronger infrastructure than any other municipality in this region for manufacturing and advanced manufacturing.  We want them to come here, develop here, grow here and we will train our residents for these jobs.