US Prepares Blueprint for Businesses to Export to Asia

SINGAPORE - The US Commercial Service will encourage American small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to export to Asia to broaden their markets and beat the economic downturn at home, officials said today.

Officers of the US government's trade promotion body from the US and 14 Asia-Pacific countries and cities gathered for the first time here to hammer out a blueprint for promoting the region to American SMEs.

Of the 23 million SMEs in the United States, only one percent or about 230,000 firms, export their products, said Douglas Barry, director for marketing and communications of the US Commercial Service in Washington.

Of this number, 65 percent export to Canada and Mexico, he told reporters on the sidelines of the meeting.

"There's been a downturn in the domestic markets and I think more (US) companies are realising now that it's important to have a strategy that develops markets outside the US," Mr Barry said.

"Many of these companies are also experiencing competition from companies from abroad that are selling in the US market. You can't afford to be parochial in your outlook, you have to think more globally and internationally," he said.

The US Commercial Service, which is under the Commerce Department, hopes that its efforts will double the current number of American SMEs that export in the next several years.

The meeting gathered US commercial officers attached to US embassies in the Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean) as well Australia and New Zealand, Japan, China, South Korea, India and Hong Kong. Representatives from Washington also attended.