With competition for investment and jobs intensifying, S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford said Tuesday he is open to more cooperation with North Carolina on economic development projects.

"I think it's the wave of the future," said Sanford, in Charlotte for a meeting with 30 business, education and economic development leaders. "Resources used bidding against each other cannot be used to deploy that headquarters from Chicago."

Sanford's remarks were a mixed bag for his audience of the Charlotte Regional Partnership's board of directors. The nonprofit corporation promotes 16 counties surrounding Charlotte, including four in South Carolina. Founded in the early 1990s, the partnership has pioneered the concept of regional cooperation and its members were eager to share their vision with Sanford. South Carolina's expansive corporate tax incentives and aggressive recruiting, meanwhile, are both admired and resented by economic developers in North Carolina.

Today, the states compete for many projects, often by cutting property and income taxes and offering job training, infrastructure and other grants. Cooperation has been limited mostly to local efforts like the regional partnership, which would like to see the two states cooperate even more.

Union County Manager Mike Shalati urged Sanford to back legislation that would make it easier for counties on either side of the border to split the costs and benefits of new projects. He said Union and its S.C. neighbor, Lancaster County, have worked with property owners trying to develop hundreds of acres straddling the state and county borders. With support from congressional delegations in both states, such projects could better compete for federal grant money needed to extend roads and utilities, said Shalati.

"It's not some game where if one wins, the other loses," said Shalati. "We could all win. North and South Carolina and the whole country. It's so much cheaper to find regional solutions to local problems."

A Republican, Sanford said he has met with his counterpart in Georgia -- Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue -- to discuss economic development along the state's border. But he said he had no plans for a similar meeting with N.C. Gov. Mike Easley, a Democrat.

Still, Sanford asked for information on commuting patterns that show how people in South Carolina benefit from projects and employers in North Carolina and vice versa. Sanford urged the partnership to share the information with S.C. Secretary of Commerce Bob Faith, who is scheduled to visit Charlotte Sept. 11.

The conversation comes amid rising anxiety over the direction of the Piedmont's economy. At Tuesday's meeting, real estate executives, bankers and economic development officials reported that capital spending in the region had come to a standstill, depressing prices for industrial property.

Together the two states shed 48,600 manufacturing jobs in the year ended July 30. Total nonfarm employment remained flat in North Carolina and fell by nearly 21,000 in South Carolina during that period. Unemployment in Chester County rose to 16.9 from 16.5 percent in July, the third-highest in South Carolina. Unemployment climbed to 7 percent from 6.2 percent in South Carolina in July and remained flat at 6.6 percent in North Carolina.

"We are very concerned about the economy in the Piedmont, the job losses, the tax base shrinking and particularly we are concerned about the industrial customer base eroding with textile closings," said Tony Almeida, vice president of economic development for Duke Power.

Industrial customers make up 35 percent of Duke's electricity sales now, compared with 43 percent in 1990. Textile sales have fallen to 11 percent from 20 percent of sales during the same period, said Almeida.

Duke Power is planning a conference for Charlotte next year to discuss economic development in its service area, which stretches from Anderson, S.C., to Marion, N.C., and Durham.

"Employees flow across those lines and -- certainly when it comes to air quality issues -- air flows across those lines," said Almeida. "We've got to be looking at these thing regionally."