Tradeology, the ITA Blog

Jennifer Gardner is an intern in the Office of Public Affairs.

Today, Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker attended the U.S. Travel Association’s IPW conference where she spoke on the continued strong growth for international travel to the United States.  Secretary Pritzker announced the 2015 Spring Travel Forecast which projects the United States will see 3.8 to 4.6 percent annual growth rates in visitor volume during the 2015-2020 timeframe. By 2020, this growth would produce 96.4 million visitors, an increase of 21 million visitors when compared to 2014.

More than 1,000 U.S. travel organizations from every region of the nation, and more than 1,300 international and domestic buyers from more than 70 countries are gathered this week at IPW in Orlando, Florida. This conference is the travel industry’s premier international marketplace and the largest generator of travel to the United States.

Travel to the United States supported 1.1 million jobs and brought in $221 billion in 2014. As the visitor volume is expected to increase 3.8 percent in 2015, the amount of visitors staying one or more nights is projected to reach 77.6 million.

It’s no surprise that the top two markets generating visitors to the United States are Canada and Mexico. Expected to grow by 6.3 million from 2014 to 2015, Mexico would set another record volume level. Canada is also expecting a 15 percent increase.

The Asia-Pacific region is projected to generate a 49 percent increase in visitors by 2020. With these projections, China would account for the second-largest number of additional visitors behind Mexico.

Europe and South America are also anticipated to realize a 21 and 34 percent increase in visitors to the United States by 2020, respectively.  Europe is projected to reach 16.7 million visitors with the largest growth coming from the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany. South America will generate nearly 1.9 million more visitors. Visitors from Brazil, the largest source market in the South American region, are expected to increase 38 percent by 2020.

See the full 2015 Spring Travel Forecast at http://travel.trade.gov/view/f-2000-99-001/index.html.

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This post originally appeared on the Department of Commerce blog.

BEA’s New Data Tool Provides Fast Access to Trade and Investment Stats for Countries

A new data tool–International Trade and Investment Country Facts Application–on the Bureau of Economic Analysis website gives users a snapshot of statistics on trade and investment between the United States and another country by simply clicking on a world map.

These fast facts at your fingertips can include:

• Total exports, imports and trade balance between the United States and the country you select.
• The top five categories of goods and services the United States buys from and sells to that country.
• Country level data on U.S. direct investment abroad and foreign direct investment in the United States and on the activities of multinational enterprises such as employment and sales.

The country snapshots, or factsheets, also contain charts and can be printed or downloaded to a spreadsheet. The new data tool pulls statistics from BEA’s international data sets on exports, imports, direct investment, and the activities of multinational enterprises into a single easy-to-digest resource. Similar to the BEA’s BEARFACTS regional factsheets for state and regional economic data, the new international factsheets can be used to quickly get up to speed for a business presentation, a news story, or a school research project.

Users select a country from an interactive world map or a searchable menu of countries. The tool generates a country factsheet with graphs and tables showing the latest data on U.S. trade and investment with that country. A PDF of the factsheet is available for easy printing. The tool also provides data tables containing more detailed statistics that can be downloaded in Excel format.

To access the new international data tool, visit http://bea.gov/international/factsheet/. For a video tour of the new data tool, visithttps://youtu.be/xgLdKJV-g2g

This new data tool is just one of the ways that BEA is innovating to better measure the 21st Century economy. Some of the trade data used in the new tool comes from the U.S. Census Bureau, another Commerce Department agency, underscoring the how agencies within Commerce work together to make data even more accessible to the American public.

Providing businesses and individuals with new data tools like these – not only deepens their understanding of the U.S. economy – but also fulfills a strategic goal contained in the Commerce Department’s “Open for Business Agenda.” And, that is to make data even more accessible and easier to use.

Lauren Scott is an international economist in the Office of Trade and Economic Analysis at the International Trade Administration.

Yesterday the Census Bureau released its annual Profile of U.S. Importing and Exporting Companies, which details the characteristics of U.S. merchandise trading companies in 2013. The report, a joint project between Census and the International Trade Administration (ITA), includes information on company size, industry sector, geographic location, and export markets. More than 304,000 U.S. companies exported goods in 2013, which is a 10 percent increase from 2009, when the National Export Initiative (NEI) was first announced by President Obama.

The Profile especially highlights the role of small businesses in export industries. Small- and medium-sized enterprises, or SMEs, which are firms with fewer than 500 employees, accounted for 98 percent of the number of U.S. exporters in 2013 and $471 billion in known value of goods exports*. The majority of SME exporters ship goods to at least one of our NAFTA partner countries, Canada or Mexico, with the U.K., China, and Germany, also serving as top markets for SME exports. In fact, the known value of SME exports to Mexico increased by nearly 19 percent between 2012 and 2013. Similarly, SME exports, by value, grew by 5 percent to Colombia during its second year as a U.S. free trade agreement partner. Nearly 21,000 SMEs exported goods to South Korea and more than 14,000 exported to Colombia in 2013, both of which became U.S. free trade partners in 2012.

The majority of U.S. exporters are non-manufacturing firms, and SMEs account for the majority of these non-manufacturing companies. Wholesale trade companies and other non-manufacturing firms made up 76 percent of SME exporters. These SMEs contributed 55 percent of the non-manufacturing sector’s $562 billion in exports. Manufacturing firms account for less than a quarter of U.S. exporters; however, this sector accounted for 60 percent of total known export value in 2013, much of which was generated by large firms.

SMEs can also be a critical driver for economic growth through exports at the state level. In fact, SMEs were responsible for more than half of known goods exports in Montana, Rhode Island, Florida, Wyoming, New York, Hawaii, and Maine. Texas added nearly 700 SME exporters in 2013, which represented the largest increase in total exporters by state across the U.S. that year.

Small- and medium-sized firms stand to gain by expanding their reach in the global marketplace. The majority of SMEs (59 percent) exported to a single foreign market in 2013, while the majority of large companies (55 percent) exported to five or more countries. SMEs often face additional trade barriers overseas compared to large companies that use offshore business affiliates to more easily facilitate exports to a target market. Despite these obstacles, almost 93,000 SMEs exported goods to the European Union in 2013, and exports from all companies to the Pacific Rim region increased by $8 billion between 2012 and 2013. Both markets represent opportunities for continued and increasing growth.

Current and future U.S. free trade agreements, including those under negotiation with the EU and through the TPP, will be beneficial for all U.S. companies, especially SMEs, to gain market access to half of the global economy and continue growing America’s export footprint overseas.

For more information, read the full Census report or review ITA’s summary of the report highlights. Also, be sure to check out our infographic .

* “Known value” refers to export transactions that can be linked to a specific company, so in many cases these figures may be underestimated.

This post originally appeared on the Department of Commerce blog.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker today announced new data that shows 26 states achieved records in goods exports in 2014, while eight additional states experienced growth in merchandise exports over 2013 levels. Total merchandise exports from all 50 states helped the U.S. achieve the fifth consecutive record-setting year of goods and services exports, which reached $2.35 trillion in 2014.

Secretary Pritzker praised today’s announcement stressing the fact exports are critical to economic growth and job creation in communities across the country. “With 95 percent of the world’s consumers living outside the United States, opening more markets to ‘Made in America’ goods and services is fundamental to our nation’s competitiveness, job creation, and the economic security of our families,” she said.

Strengthening partnerships with states and rural communities in support of exporters and investment attraction efforts is a key objective for the second phase of President Obama’s National Export Initiative – NEI/NEXT, which Secretary Pritzker launched in May 2014. Through NEI/NEXT, 20 federal agencies are advancing program and policy improvements to provide exporters more tailored assistance and information; streamline export reporting requirements; expand access to export financing; ensure market access and a level playing field; and collaborate with state and local organizations.

The 26 states that set new records for exports in 2014 include:

• Texas ($289.0 billion);
• California ($174.1 billion);
• Washington ($90.6 billion);
• Illinois ($68.2 billion);
• Louisiana ($65.1 billion);
• Ohio ($52.1 billion);
• Georgia ($39.4 billion);
• Indiana ($35.5 billion);
• Tennessee ($33.0 billion);
• North Carolina ($31.3 billion);
• South Carolina ($29.7 billion);
• Kentucky ($27.5 billion);
• Wisconsin ($23.4 billion);
• Minnesota ($21.4 billion);
• Arizona ($21.1 billion);
• Oregon ($20.9 billion);
• Virginia ($19.2 billion);
• Iowa ($15.1 billion);
• Maryland ($12.2 billion);
• Nebraska ($7.9 billion);
• North Dakota ($5.3 billion);
• New Hampshire ($4.4 billion);
• New Mexico ($3.8 billion);
• Rhode Island ($2.4 billion);
• Wyoming ($1.8 billion); and
• Hawaii ($1.5 billion).

In addition, the following states achieved growth in total merchandise exports in 2014: Alabama; Alaska; Maine; Massachusetts; Missouri; Montana; New Jersey; and South Dakota.

More information and additional facts about state exports in 2014 can be found by accessing the full press release.

Stefan M. Selig is the Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade.

Under Secretary Stefan M. Selig (second from left) discusses the importance of exports as part of a panel discussion hosted by the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC on February 5, 2015.

“The shadow of crisis has passed,” the President declared in his State of the Union two weeks ago, and the export data we released today goes to the heart of that very point.

The Commerce Department announced today that the U.S. economy hit a new annual record for exports, with $2.35 trillion in goods and services shipped in 2014.

That also represents the fifth consecutive year that our economy yielded record exports, going back to 2010 when the President launched the National Export Initiative.

If you take a deeper dive into the numbers, you see that exports are an important chapter in the larger story of our economic recovery.

Last year, we achieved record annual goods exports with Canada ($312 billion), Mexico ($240 billion) and China ($124 billion). In fact, the U.S. economy had record goods exports with 52 countries in 2014.

It was also a banner year when it came to goods exports with our free trade agreement (FTA) markets. You would expect that our exports to these countries would be strong. But last year saw enormous year-over-year growth in a variety of FTA markets throughout the world: up 7% with South Korea, 9% with Guatemala, 10% with Colombia, 11% with the Dominican Republic, and 28% with Oman.

Our services industry also enjoyed a banner year in 2014, hitting an all-time high of $710 billion.

Travel and tourism remained our strongest service export (it is easy to forget that every dollar a foreign visitor spends on airfare, lodging, and entertainment counts as an export dollar) coming in at $182 billion.

It was also a record year for goods exports, exceeding $1.6 trillion. When you take a look at individual sectors, it is easy to see a compelling story.

Exports of passenger cars represented our third-largest source of year-over-year growth—$61 billion in exports—an increase of more than $4 billion. Our three leading export markets for U.S. passenger cars were Canada, China, and Germany.

The second largest source of growth in 2014 was industrial machines. Strong increases to Canada, South Korea, Mexico and China led the U.S. to a $5 billion increase in this category.

Then, there is crude oil exports, which rose by a staggering 136%—$7 billion—between 2013 and 2014. That represented the largest export increase of any single category.

When you look at these three points, it is clear that they speak to more than exports. They all speak to our impressive recovery and to the sources of our enormous economic strength: a resurgent auto industry, a robust manufacturing sector, and a booming domestic energy market.

The data we see today prove what I often say: that trade is not a threat to American greatness. It is an expression of it.

We export the best goods and services in the world, produced by the best workforce in the world. These exports support more than 11 million American jobs in 2013. 1.6 million of those jobs emerged since the President took office in 2009.

And I am proud to say that ITA is the leading agency in the world when it comes to helping businesses compete in the global marketplace.

The shadow of crisis has indeed passed. The numbers reflect the strength of our exports, our economy and the prospect for a bright future for American workers and American businesses.

This post originally appeared on the Department of Commerce blog.

Guest blog post by Jane Callen, Economics and Statistics Administration.

This post originally appeared on the Department of Commerce blog.

Guest blog post by Dale Kelly, Chief of the International Trade Management Division, U.S. Census Bureau

International markets provide an opportunity for U.S. businesses to increase sales and overall competitiveness, but knowing how to get started and learning about foreign markets can be daunting The U.S. Census Bureau can help.

Although known most widely as the home of the decennial Census of U.S. households, the Census Bureau also is responsible for collecting, compiling, and publishing monthly trade statistics on all goods imported and exported from the United States. Every month, the Census Bureau releases information on the import and export of commodities such as soybeans, corn, rice, chemicals, steel, aircraft, and lumber. Together with the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which collects similar data on services imports and exports, the Census Bureau releases the  “U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services” report. This report provides detailed information on import and export of merchandise by commodity and end-use category as well as by the multitude of countries and areas with which the U.S. conducts international trade. All of these reports are available at the Census Bureau’s foreign trade web page.

How can this information help U.S. businesses? The Census Bureau provides detailed information on more than 9,000 export commodities and 18,000 import commodities. Easily accessible online, this information assists U.S. businesses in making informed decision by tracking the global marketplace for their product and identifying possible opportunities to expand to new markets.

In addition to data, the Census Bureau provides resources and tools to help businesses export. The Census Bureau’s International Trade Management Division conducts outreach and training around the country. Training includes webinars, seminars, workshops, and blog posts on using trade data, understanding foreign trade regulations and utilizing the Automated Export System, which allows the electronic filing of export information directly to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. These same data are the source of the Census Bureau’s merchandise export and import statistics. The next two-day training on the Automated Export System begins on January 21 in Houston, Texas.  Trade is a vital part of our economy, and the Census Bureau plays an important role in providing detailed timely information to U.S. businesses to make informed decisions.