Woonsocket-based Aidance Skincare & Topical Solutions LLC, which designs and manufactures therapeutic skin-care products, has been doing business with Israel since the company began seven years ago, but without exporting goods there.
That is about to change, due in part to a $496,066 federal grant that the Chafee Center for International Business at Bryant University received recently. The funds will help small and medium-sized businesses in the Ocean State increase exports, officials have said, and provide financial support for three trade missions overseas.
The first of those missions was due to leave the state Nov. 4 for a 10-day visit to Israel. Among the 20 local business representatives that make up the Rhode Island delegation was David P. Goldsmith, founder and chief business-development officer of Aidance, which has 18 employees.
Representatives of Aidance visit Israel regularly, Goldsmith said, because his business obtains some supplies there, such as raw materials, product boxes and jars. His goal as part of the Rhode Island trade mission, he told Providence Business News, is “to get the ball rolling so we can start exporting to Israel.”
Despite the company’s own visits to the Middle East, Goldsmith said being part of a formal Rhode Island trade delegation will open new doors.
“We’ve already got so much out of it,” Goldsmith said of the trade mission several days before it departed. “We’ve been put in touch with a specialist in the medical field at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and she’s already lining up interviews for us” with potential Israeli business partners and distributors.
Aidance’s therapeutic products treat such ailments as acne, bedsores, diabetic ulcers, wounds and scars. A new therapeutic line for dogs, cats, horses and farm animals awaits U.S. Food & Drug Administration approval, expected in a few months, Goldsmith said. His Israeli contacts “have expressed extreme interest” in the latter, he added, making it a promising product to export.
Rhode Island ranked 14th out of 50 states with exports totaling $1.33 billion for the first seven months of 2011, the most recent data available from the Chafee Center. Officials hope that the state’s export rate could double by 2014 due to the federal grant. Full-year totals previously were: $1.97 billion in 2008; $1.5 billion in 2009; and $1.95 billion in 2010.
Eleven Rhode Island and Massachusetts businesses, six government and two college representatives were scheduled to go to Israel. The businesses attending, Fogarty said, contacted the Chafee Center and asked to take part.
The six officials on the mission are: Fogarty and Gerald Cohen from the Chafee Center; two members of the R.I. Economic Development Corporation, John Riendeau and Katherine Tufts; consulate general of Israel, Shai Bazak, based in Boston; and Avishai Nevel of Nevel International in Providence, an Israeli whom Fogarty said often works with the Chafee Center.
Businesses represented include jewelry and fashion companies such as Alex and Ani in Warwick, two biomedical companies, a data-mining firm, an energy company, a printing business and a communications company. Nancy Carrioulo, president of Rhode Island College, and Katherine Gordon of the Technology Ventures Office at Brown University also are part of the mission. The delegation was slated to visit Tel Aviv, Herzliya, Haifa, Nazareth and Galilee.
The grant covers airfare and lodging for the six officials at a total cost of $20,000, Fogarty said. Business representatives must pay their own way, but Fogarty said some funds will be used to offset the cost, for example, of setting up meetings in Israel.
Fogarty said he expected 18-hour days in Israel because “this is no junket.” Top goals he cited include having businesses make actual arrangements for exports to Israel and the identification of potential investors. A meeting also is planned on tourism to highlight the many attractions of the Ocean State in the hope of drawing Israeli visitors, Fogarty said.
Other trade missions are being planned for China or Japan and to the Dominican Republic and Colombia.
In addition to trade missions, the grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration State Trade and Export Promotions program will support in-depth, comprehensive support services for 150 companies who will be chosen through an outreach process that includes surveys and interviews. •
