Posts Tagged ‘NEI/NEXT’

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Small Business Development Centers Raise the Bar on Exporting

September 22, 2014

Gabriela Preda is an intern with the International Trade Administration’s Office for Export Policy, Promotion, and Strategy.

A man is drawing lines connecting countries on a map of the world.Two reports released earlier this month by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration (ITA) — Jobs Supported by State Exports 2013 and U.S. Metropolitan Area Exports 2013 — highlight one of the hottest topics right now in our economy: U.S. exports.

Since the launch of the Administration’s National Export Initiative (NEI) in 2010, U.S. businesses are selling more goods and services abroad than ever before, reaching an all-time record in 2013 of $2.3 trillion in exports.

As we transition to the next phase of supporting U.S. exporters through NEI/Next,  ITA is expanding export-promotion efforts and trade advocacy. Our success depends on collaboration with public and private organizations at the national, state, and local levels that want to do the same.

One of the most important tools for supporting U.S. exporters is the nationwide network of Small Business Development Centers, and we were glad to see them in the spotlight at America’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Annual Conference in Grapevine, Texas.

More than 1,400 participants representing the SBDC network gathered for training sessions, workshops, discussions, and exhibits.

Supported by a collaboration of Small Business Administration federal funds, state and local governments, and private sector resources, SBDCs provide an array of technical assistance to small businesses and entrepreneurs. A hallmark of SBDC assistance is no-cost, extensive, one-on-one, long-term professional business advising.

In Grapevine, hundreds of SBDC export counselors took part in 15 international trade sessions ranging from export basics to protecting intellectual property in China. The annual conference is helping to build an army of enthusiastic SBDC export counselors across the United States, arming them with the knowledge and skills necessary to guide businesses forward.

And we at ITA are proud to have such a capable network of business experts as partners in supporting U.S. exporters! Together, SBDCs and ITA’s network of Export Assistance Centers will help support America’s business innovators bring quality U.S.-made products to more markets around the world.

If your business is ready to compete in the global marketplace, contact your nearest SBDC or Export Assistance Center now!

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NEI/NEXT Priority Objective: Expand Access to Finance for U.S. Exporters

July 10, 2014

This post contains external links. Please review our external linking policy.

Yuki Fujiyama is a trade finance specialist with the Office of Finance and Insurance Services Industries in the International Trade Administration.  He serves on the Department’s liaison team to the U.S. Export-Import Bank and he is the author of The Trade Finance Guide: A Quick Reference for U.S. Exporters.

Attendees at the Seminar learned the best ways to get paid from export sales, as part of a continued effort to support U.S. exporters.

Attendees at the Seminar learned the best ways to get paid from export sales, as part of a continued effort to support U.S. exporters. You can learn about this in our Trade Finance Guide.

The U.S. government is focusing on expanding access to finance for U.S. exporters, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and their foreign buyers.

On June 30, the U.S. Department of Commerce partnered with a number of local organizations and federal agencies to present The Global Connect: Arlington Trade Finance Seminar at Arlington Economic Development in Northern Virginia.

Expanding access to export financing is one of the five priority objectives under NEI/NEXT, the next phase of the President’s National Export Initiative, a customer-focused initiative to ensure that more American businesses can fully capitalize on markets around the world.

Despite recent improvements in the economy, many U.S. businesses, especially SMEs and minority-owned firms, still face significant challenges in financing their export transactions.  The Arlington seminar helped local SMEs learn ways to overcome such challenges by following NEI/NEXT’s three key trade finance strategies:

  1. Engage and educate more commercial lenders and private-sector partners on U.S. government export financing and insurance programs.
  2. Educate more U.S. businesses on how to utilize the government and commercial trade finance resources that can help turn their export opportunities into actual transactions.
  3. Streamline services provided by U.S. government export financing and promotion agencies.

In addition to these finance strategies, participants also explored:

  • getting paid from export sales;
  • getting paid in foreign currencies;
  • taking advantage of  export assistance resources and U.S. Government export financing programs;
  • identifying U.S. export opportunities in Latin America; and,
  • finding global business development resources for U.S. Hispanic and Other Minority-Owned Businesses.

With the new knowledge gained from Global Connect Arlington, participants are now more equipped to enter, grow and succeed in global markets!

Do you need more info on trade finance? Our Trade Finance Guide is a great place to start!

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Secretary Pritzker Announces Next Phase of the National Export Initiative — NEI/NEXT

May 13, 2014

This post originally appeared on the Department of Commerce blog.

NEI Next emblemToday, Secretary Penny Pritzker announced NEI/NEXT – a data-based, customer service-driven initiative to ensure that more American businesses can fully capitalize on markets that are opening up around the world. Through five core objectives, NEI/NEXT will build on Administration-wide achievements under the National Export Initiative (NEI), to help all businesses reach the 95 percent of consumers who live outside the United States.

Under the NEI, the United States has had four straight record-breaking years of exports – hitting an all-time high of $2.3 trillion dollars last year – up $700 billion from 2009. The NEI has been instrumental in strengthening high-level commercial advocacy on behalf of U.S. companies, increasing small business participation in trade events, partnering with regions to develop export plans, expanding strategic partnerships to promote exports,  implementing our trade agreements, enforcing U.S. trade rights, and driving the most ambitious trade agenda in a generation.

In a new economic report released today by the Department of Commerce, data shows that nearly one-third of the country’s economic growth since mid-2009 has been driven by exports. Nearly 30,000 businesses have started exporting for the first time. And most importantly, since 2009, the number of jobs supported by exports has grown by 1.6 million to more than 11.3 million – the highest in 20 years.

Yet still, too many American firms remain focused on domestic markets.  Less than 5 percent of U.S. companies export, and more than half of those exporters sell to only one market. To help bridge that gap, and look for new opportunities to help U.S. businesses export, the Department of Commerce, along with 20 federal agency partners last year began to take a fresh look at the NEI and develop strategies that would help make trade a central part of America’s economic DNA.  The end product of that interagency review resulted in five key strategies to help more U.S. companies reach more markets. The five objectives of NEI/NEXT include:

  1. Connecting more U.S. businesses to their NEXT global customer with tailored industry-specific information and assistance.
  2. Making the NEXT international shipment easier and less expensive, through efforts to streamline U.S. government export-related services, reporting requirements and processes, and speeding American goods to more markets through domestic infrastructure improvements.
  3. Expanding access to finance for U.S. businesses’ NEXT export transaction, helping more exporters obtain financing to meet international demand, and ensuring more companies know what products and services are available to reduce risk and export to new markets with confidence.
  4. Promoting exports and foreign direct investment attraction as the NEXT economic development priority in communities and regions across the country by enhancing partnerships with local and state leaders and by coordinating with SelectUSA, the U.S. government-wide program housed within the Department of Commerce to facilitate foreign direct investment.
  5. Creating, fostering and ensuring U.S. business’ NEXT global opportunity by helping developed and developing economies improve their business environments, by opening new markets, and by establishing conditions and addressing barriers to allow more American exporters to compete and win abroad.

Underlying this entire strategy will be an effort to support the creation of improved data to help companies make decisions, to help communities integrate exports into their economic development plans, and to help us – as a government – gather feedback and continuously improve our efforts.

Read Secretary Pritzker’s complete remarks at The Atlantic about NEI/NEXT.

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