RALEIGH – Gov. Mike Easley announced today that visitors to North Carolina spent more than $15 billion in 2006, an increase of 8.3 percent from 2005 and the largest single-year increase in tourism dollars since 1990.

JOHNSONVILLE – Central Carolina Tire & Disposal, a tire recycling company located in western Harnett County, announced today that it will spend $2.5 million on an expansion that will create up to 22 new jobs in the next two years.

ERWIN – Pentair Inc. announced today that its Pool & Spa business has entered into a lease agreement for the former Swift Denim Weave plant, a 306,500-square-foot facility located along the Cape Fear River at N.C. 217 in Erwin.

RALEIGH. – Gov. Mike Easley today announced that North Carolina, for the second consecutive year, tops the Southeast in attracting new industrial plants and moved up two spots to rank No. 3 nationally in business growth, according to Site Selection magazine's annual Governor's Cup ranking. The magazine's tracking of new corporate plant locations, released in its March edition, ranked the Mooresville/Statesville area as the nation's No. 1 rural region and Greensboro/High Point as the nation's top region with a population of 200,000 to 1 million.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Small Business Administration and the U.S. Postal Service have unveiled a new Internet tool for small business owners, designed to deliver business solutions to entrepreneurs.

SANFORD – With a retail boom taking place throughout Sanford, the city also received attention this month as a top location for new and expanded corporate facilities.

RALEIGH – Progress Energy (NYSE: PGN) announced that it has entered into a series of transactions to divest of substantially all of subsidiary Progress Ventures’ physical and commercial assets and liabilities.

FAYETTEVILLE – Richard H. Parks, chief executive officer of Cape Fear Valley Health System, has accepted the position of president/CEO of West Tennessee Healthcare.

SANFORD – The Pantry, Inc. (NASDAQ: PTRY), the leading independently operated convenience store chain in the southeastern U.S., today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire 11 convenience stores in the Spartanburg, South Carolina market from Willard Oil Company, Inc. The stores, which operate under the Fast Phil’s banner, generated revenues of approximately $38 million in 2006.

SANFORD — Workforce training took on an international flavor when a 10-member delegation of government officials and college educators from Northern Ireland visited Central Carolina Community College.

DUNN – Recent national news concerning troubled New Century Financial Corporation (NYSE: NEW), an Irvine, California-based real estate investment trust and mortgage lending company, has caused some confusion among New Century Bancorp (Nasdaq: NCBC) and its subsidiaries due to the similarities in the names.

MOUNT GILEAD – McRae Industries, Inc. (Pink Sheets: MRINA and MRINB) reported consolidated net revenues from operations for the second quarter of fiscal 2007 of $17,123,000, compared to $20,424,000 for the second quarter of fiscal 2006.

FAYETTEVILLE – The North Carolina Military Business Center announced that its contracting and jobs portal – MatchForce.org – achieved a major milestone last week when the 20,000th MatchForce user was registered.

RALEIGH – The State Board of Community Colleges received a one-two punch at its meeting today – North Carolina Community College System President H. Martin Lancaster announced he will retire on May 1, 2008, and No. 2 man Fred Williams, the executive vice president and chief operating officer, announced his Sept. 1, 2007, retirement.

CARTHAGE – Great opportunities are on the horizon for job-seekers and employers in Moore County. Next week, the first annual “Employ Moore” Job Fair takes place on Thursday, March 8, 2007, at the County Agricultural Center in Carthage. Open to the public from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m., the Fair will feature over 20 employers. Job-seekers can complete job applications and submit resumes on-site, and employers can conduct interviews with applicants on-the-spot.

EVANSTON, Ill. – North Carolina saw another year of manufacturing job losses, according to the 2007 North Carolina Manufacturers Register, an industrial directory published annually by Manufacturers' News, Inc. (MNI) reports North Carolina lost 8,798 manufacturing jobs (1.3percent) since January 2006, a sharper drop compared to the half percent loss reported by MNI a year earlier.

CHARLOTTE – A net 5 percent of chief information officers (CIOs) in the Charlotte area expect to hire information technology (IT) professionals in the second quarter of 2007, according to the most recent Robert Half Technology IT Hiring Index and Skills Report. Ten percent of executives surveyed plan to add staff during the quarter and 5 percent anticipate reductions in personnel. The net 5 percent increase is down one point from the first-quarter 2007 forecast. The majority of respondents, 83 percent, foresee no change in hiring in the second quarter.

LAURINBURG – A significant decline in customer orders for Golf Pride golf grips has prompted Eaton Corporation to announce that it will eliminate a manufacturing shift and 56 jobs at its Laurinburg plant.

ASHEBORO – FNB United Corp. (NASDAQ: FNBN) today announced that its board of directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of 15 cents per share, to be paid on April 26 to shareholders of record on April 5.

TROY – The Board of Directors of First Bancorp (Nasdaq: FBNC), the parent company of First Bank, has declared a cash dividend of 19 cents per share payable April 25, 2007 to shareholders of record as of March 31, 2007. The 19 cents per share dividend rate represents a 5.6% increase over the dividend rate of 18 cents per share declared in the same period of 2006.

RALEIGH – Future road congestion could threaten North Carolina’s economy, and Fayetteville deserves just a C+ grade in preparing for congestion growth, according to a new Policy Report from the John Locke Foundation and Reason Foundation.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – The 2007 Spring National Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Conference will be held April 30-May 3, 2007 at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel and Convention Center in Research Triangle Park, NC. Small businesses involved in scientific or technological research and development will gather to learn how to tap into the nation's two billion dollar R&D funding resource.

RALEIGH – North Carolina has been recognized for one of the nation's largest increases in the college-going rate of low-income students, according to a new report by Postsecondary Education OPPORTUNITY, a public policy analysis report.

DUNN – The College of American Pathologists recently selected the Laboratory at Betsy Johnson Regional Hospital to be a hematology referee for cell identification.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Small Business Administration made a record number of export loans in FY 2006 and surpassed the $1 billion mark for the first time in the history of the program.