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Tourism is the economic mainstay, with service industries supporting the large number of annual visitors. For most of its history, San Francisco has been the financial center of the West Coast, but since the early 1970s the city has had to compete with Los Angeles for this distinction. Finance remains one of the most important activities; the city is still headquarters to two of the country's largest commercial banks as well as a Federal Reserve bank and the Pacific Stock Exchange. More than 600 insurance companies are based there. Although manufacturing in San Francisco has declined, the clothing and food-processing industries remain important.
San Francisco is also the marketplace for a large agricultural and mining region and the focus of many transportation routes. Along with the busy port of Richmond across the bay, San Francisco and the Bay Area form one of the largest ports on the West Coast and are a major center of trade with East Asia, Hawaii, and Alaska. The area's transportation needs are served by an extensive highway and rail network and the interurban Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system.
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