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November 09, 2005
Small business export assistance in the works
If you want to sell your products overseas, you may be heartened to know that some members of Congress want to help you out.
Yesterday, House Small Business Committee Chairman Don Manzullo (R-IL) and Congressman John Mica (R-FL), who are concerned about the trade deficit, introduced legislation that hopes to "reform U.S. trade assistance and promotion programs to help U.S. companies sell more of their products overseas."
According to the press release distributed yesterday by Chairman Manzullo's staff, the U.S. Export Promotion Act (no bill number yet) would
- expand the U.S. Foreign and Commercial Service presence to every country with whom the United States maintains diplomatic relations
- eliminate government fees charged to U.S. exporters for trade promotion assistance
- increase U.S. export promotion activities in developing economies
- require 100 U.S.-sponsored trade missions to be conducted over the years 2006 and 2007
- direct the Department of Commerce to develop a plan to relocate U.S. Foreign and Commercial Service offices outside of U.S. embassy compounds to facilitate export promotion activities
- establish a comprehensive database of exporters to increase the dissemination of overseas business opportunities
- remove overseas trade promotion positions from the Capital Security Cost-Sharing Program requirements which cut into the U.S. export promotion budget
- direct the Department of Commerce to improve its export promotion website in an effort to make it more user-friendly and expand its scope
No word yet on how much this measure would cost. As for the other question — if passed, would it help? — well, that's possible but unlikely.
Not too long ago, Advocacy published research that indicated that one of the biggest obstacles for small business would-be exporters is the amount of paperwork and administrative waltzing about required to get into exporting, particularly if you're sending any quantity of goods overseas.
From a paperwork point of view, it's a lot easier to sell and ship a pair of shoes to France than it is to ship several pallets of shoes to France.
This measure doesn't appear to do anything to address the paperwork issue, so I don't know how useful it's going to be.
Posted by The Journal Blogger at November 9, 2005 07:13 AM
