Port Everglades to house U.S. export office
The U.S. Commerce Department has relocated a U.S. Export Assistance Center to Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., as part of a wider effort to leverage the trade facilitation capabilities of ports and expand overseas sales.
Local officials said the office, which previously was downtown, will help spur exports from South Florida, especially for small to medium-size firms. Smaller companies are responsible for nearly two-thirds of the region's merchandise exports, more than twice the national average.
South Florida airports and seaports posted an export surplus record of $22.2 million last year — the highest for any Customs district in the United States. More than $11.1 billion worth of goods were shipped through Port Everglades in 2010, making it the 11th-largest port in terms of ocean exports by value. Only three other seaports in the nation had a higher trade surplus than Port Everglades' $2.8 billion, according to the port authority.
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The Obama administration has made it a priority to pool the resources of the entire government in an effort to double exports by 2015. Courtney Gregoire, a Commerce Department official and the director of the National Export Initiative, in March initiated a collaboration with the American Association of Port Authorities to enhance outreach to potential exporters that ports deal with and help them navigate cultural, regulatory and financial complexities of transacting business across borders. One of the goals is to train trade promotion staff at ports about the full suite of available federal resources for identifying key markets, building market entry strategies, and providing trade finance and other assistance.
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The Commerce Department has similar partnerships with FedEx, UPS, the U.S. Postal Service and the National Association of Manufacturers.
'Ports are being targeted to lead the NEI because of our expertise in foreign trade. The administration recognizes that ports have the knowledge of what it takes to do business overseas and the contacts to help local companies expand their business models to reach markets abroad,” Port Everglades Director Phil Allen said in a statement.
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The U.S. Commercial Service within the Commerce Department has Export Assistance Centers in 107 cities in the United States that provide market intelligence, trade counseling, customer matching and other services.
Speaking Wednesday to the annual meeting of the Coalition for America's Gateways & Trade Corridors in Washington, Gregoire noted that as U.S. agricultural exports grow there is commensurate need in emerging markets such as China and India for cold storage facilities to handle imported and domestic perishable products.
According to a 2007 A.T. Kearney study, China lacks a modern cold distribution system capable of handling the $650 billion worth of food products the country's middle class is expected to purchase by 2017. More than 50 cities with populations of more than 1 million people will need to build modern temperature-controlled infrastructure to meet the demand, the study said.
The need for temperature-controlled warehouses in other countries presents an export opportunity for U.S. manufacturers of freezers, sensors and other types of equipment, Gregoire said.
To read more about the growing role of ports in export promotion, see the feature story 'Export Experts' in the May issue. ' Eric Kulisch
