ADVISORY/President of Acton Institute, Father Robert Sirico, Returns From Fact Finding Mission to China; Available to Brief Media On Meetings With Business and Religious Leaders.

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ADVISORY

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 5, 2000

WHO:      Rev. Robert A. Sirico, co-founder and president of the Acton
          Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, returns
          this week from an eight-day fact finding-trip to China where
          he met with business and religious leaders to discuss
          Sino-US trade relations.

WHAT:     Meetings took place on both an official and informal basis
          and were conducted in Beijing, as well as in the interior of
          China. Father Sirico was interviewed on his views and the
          position of the Acton Institute by China Central Television,
          and, at the conclusion of his visit, he stopped in Hong Kong
          to address members of the Foreign Correspondents Club on his
          experiences.

          Father Sirico is available to brief the US media on his
          meetings in China and to comment on his findings. He can be
          contacted at 616/345-2286, e-mail: [e-mail]. or via
          Michelle Jordan at 949/475-6980,
          e-mail: [e-mail].

          Father Sirico has spent almost five years studying the
          internal affairs of China and the important role trade can
          play in helping to facilitate greater political, economic,
          and religious freedoms in Mainland China. He has provided
          expert testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee
          on the need for a continued trade relationship with the
          Chinese people and has written extensively on the subject in
          national publications, including the Wall Street Journal,
          the Asian Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily and
          Forbes.

          The Acton Institute is a non-profit, free market educational
          institution whose goal is to act as a link between the free
          market ideas that have made America strong and the moral
          values upon which our society was founded. The Institute
          aims to demonstrate religion's role as a sustainer of
          freedom and as an educator of individual responsibility. It
          believes that clergy and other religious leaders must be
          among the most articulate proponents of the moral rationale
          for a free society.