Rhode Island’s exports jump 44.3%

RHODE ISLAND exports jumped 44.3 percent in March when compared with a year earlier. For a larger version of this chart, <a href=CLICK HERE. / " title="RHODE ISLAND exports jumped 44.3 percent in March when compared with a year earlier. For a larger version of this chart, CLICK HERE. /"/>
RHODE ISLAND exports jumped 44.3 percent in March when compared with a year earlier. For a larger version of this chart, CLICK HERE. /

PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island exports jumped 44.3 percent in March when compared with a year earlier, according to seasonally adjusted data from e-forecasting.com.
Exports increased to $225.8 million in March from $156.5 million in the same 2010 month. When comparing March to February, exports grew 14.5 percent from $197.2 million.
Manufactured goods, accounting for 69 percent of all foreign sales, surged 45.7 percent in March to $155.9 million from $107.0 million as seen in March 2010. When comparing month-over-month, manufactured goods increased 34.5 percent.
Nonmanufactured goods exports – agricultural goods, mining products and re-exports – increased 41.2 percent from a year earlier, reaching $69.9 million in March from $49.5 million a year earlier. However, when comparing the figure with a month earlier, nonmanufactured exports dropped 14.0 percent.
Rhode Island, at 24.9 percent, ranked 15th in export growth among the 50 states in the first three months of the year. Massachusetts ranked No. 48, with a 0.3 percent decrease in exports for the same period.
Nationally, exports hit $363.1 billion in the first quarter, up $57 billion, or 18.6 percent, compared with the first quarter of 2010.
Evangelos Simos, chief economist of e-forecasting.com, noted the importance of manufacturers on the local economy. Exports of manufactured goods, he said, have a ripple effect on supporting industries, such as the transport of goods to ports, banking activities for international transactions, and the production and transportation of raw materials and parts to factories.
Simos said that for every 100 jobs tied to state exports of manufactured goods, an additional 53 jobs in the state’s nonmanufacturing businesses are generated supporting the production and distribution of exports.
Looking globally, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said it expects a slowdown in trade in the second quarter in the aftermath of the earthquake in Japan but the volume to “generally remain buoyant through the latter half of 2011.”

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