President’s Export Council Launches New Jobs Tour

In late-January, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced the New Markets, New Jobs road-show to focus on helping small businesses export. The tour will be a year-long, interagency, multi-city outreach campaign designed to help connect small businesses with the resources they need to start and grow their export operations.

To kick-start the tour, on Feb. 17, 2011, the administration officials serving on the President’s Export Council, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, Small Business Administration Administrator Karen Mills and Export-Import Bank Chairman Fred Hochberg, joined by Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, hosted an event in Minneapolis, Minn. During the event, the administration officials spoke to the group and underscored their commitment to enhancing exporting opportunities for small business.

The Minnesota stop will be followed by events in Los Angeles, Calif., Louisiana and Wilmington, Del. in the coming months. The conferences are intended to reach more than 3,500 small businesses interested in exporting. In addition to hearing from senior administration officials, the conferences along the tour will offer small businesses:

• The opportunity to hear from trade resource panels on key export topics including the spectrum of federal resources;
• Materials and resources to guide companies in the process of selling their products to consumers all over the world; and
• Lessons learned from area businesses that have succeeded in utilizing federal resources to expand into new markets and grow their businesses.

According to a recent International Trade Commission survey, small- and mid-sized manufacturers that exported in 2009 had more than two-times the total revenue of their non-exporting counterparts. They experienced revenue growth of 37 percent between 2005 and 2009, while total revenue declined by seven percent for non-exporting SME manufacturers over the same period.

Unfortunately, very few small and medium sized businesses export, and they still face significant hurdles in getting their products into new markets. This new program is aimed at connecting small businesses with the 95 percent of the world’s consumers who live outside the U.S.

Please click here to learn more about the New Markets, New Jobs Tour.