17 March 2009

[US] Manufacturers Urge Congress to Promote Exports

The following is excerpted from today's edition of "The Journal of Commerce" .

The United States is "missing the boat" when it comes to exporting manufactured products, according to Frank Vargo, vice president for international economic affairs at the National Association of Manufacturers.

Vargo ... told a key House panel the U.S. government spends about twice as much on promoting its agricultural exports as it spends on promoting manufactured products, despite the fact that manufactured goods exports are 10 times larger than farm exports. U.S. export promotion efforts for manufactured goods "are about half of the average for other major industrial nations," Vargo told the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection.

The United States ranks "dead last" among the world's top 15 manufacturing nations in percentage of manufactured products sold abroad, Vargo said.

In 2008, U.S. exports accounted for only 13 percent of the country's GDP compared with 49 percent for Germany, 34 percent for the United Kingdom, 30 percent for France, and 19 percent for Japan.

"We need to achieve higher rates of exports to pay for our share of imported goods," Vargo said...