Businesses urged to look abroad for opportunities

International trade is sure to play a role in helping the state and nation out of the Great Recession, a fact that may be contributing to increased interest in this year’s Bryant University World Trade Day – whose theme is “Competing Beyond Borders.”
Courtney Gregoire, director of the National Export Initiative in Washington, D.C., is keynote speaker for the June 15 event at the Smithfield business school, organized by the John H. Chafee Center for International Business led by Raymond W. Fogarty, director. He said he hopes to see 500 people at the 26th annual daylong event, about 100 more than usual.
“We’ve known this for years, but other people are realizing now the best way to create true wealth and jobs is to look at the global market,” Fogarty told Providence Business News in a recent interview. An American job is created for every $175,000 worth of new exports, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, Fogarty said.
There are several reasons why the global market may be more appealing than usual to businesses. Fogarty noted the Internet makes it possible to access anyplace in the world. Some companies have plumbed the depths of the domestic market, he added, and are now turning to international sales for added revenue.
The U.S. dollar is weak, yielding about 61 cents for every British pound and 70 cents for every euro as of late May. At the same time, manufacturing costs elsewhere in the world are rising, according to Fogarty and A. Ray Thomas, associate director of the Chafee center.
They cited a recent study that found the cost of manufacturing in the United States will be “in line” with the cost in China in about four years. “It is going to be just as cost-effective to manufacture here as in China by 2015,” Thomas said. World Trade Day will feature an interactive session with Alex & Ani, a Cranston-based business that sells American-made costume jewelry at some of the finest retail sites in the area, including Newbury Street in Boston and Bowen’s Wharf in Newport, and through some of the finest national retailers, such as Nordstrom and Saks.
The company brings to its product a positive attitude that is almost spiritual, described this way in a World Trade Day brochure: Alex & Ani “designs products that adorn the body, enlighten the mind and empower the spirit. Alex & Ani’s collections reflect a design aesthetic that celebrates each wearer’s unique essence.”
Giovanni Feroce, CEO of Alex & Ani, will talk about the company’s recent emergence into the Japanese market and plans to export its products to Spain in July. The company’s primary overseas business right now is in Japan, he said, worth $600,000 in sales last year with no employees and no commercial advertisements in that country.
Feroce said he will discuss how the business used state and federal connections to enter the international market and how strategic placement of its retail stores in locations most visible to overseas visitors has led to global contracts.
For instance, he said the company’s New York City site led to the Japanese market, while the Newbury Street store in Boston is bringing the business to Spain, in both cases due to international business leaders and decision-makers who shopped at these stores and now want to market Alex & Ani products in their own countries.
Gregoire, the daughter of Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, at the luncheon keynote will talk about her role within the U.S. Department of Commerce as director of the National Export Initiative. She previously served as director of legislative affairs for the commerce department and, before that, was a policy adviser during the Clinton administration. President Barack Obama announced in his 2010 State of the Union address that this initiative is aimed at doubling the number of American exports during the next five years to support two million new jobs. With exports in Rhode Island approaching $2 billion, doubling exports would mean 10,000 new jobs in the Ocean State, according to a World Trade Day brochure.
Gregoire will discuss: improving advocacy and export-promotion effort; increasing access to export financing, especially for small and mid-sized businesses; removing trade barriers abroad; and enforcing trade rules to ensure trade partners live up to their obligations. Fogarty said Gregoire has “almost daily access” to Obama, a sign of the high priority he said Obama places on increasing U.S. exports.
Rhode Island exports grew 15.9 percent in the first two months of the year compared to the same time last year and, Fogarty reported, are approaching the $2 billion mark. The state’s major export is scrap and waste metal.
Professors Edward M. Mazze at the University of Rhode Island and Edinaldo Tebaldi at Bryant recently reported that Rhode Island exports grew from $1.65 billion in 2007 to $1.95 billion in 2010, an 18 percent increase. Canada is Rhode Island’s largest market, receiving more than $586 million worth of goods in 2010, more than 30 percent of the state’s total exports, the professors said. Jobs created through exporting account for 3.6 percent of the state’s private-sector employment.
More than 30 local business experts are taking part in World Trade Day, where there will be 35 exhibits on display and workshops on such issues as Rhode Island’s cost of sales and business clusters. &#8226