About 95% of consumers worldwide live outside of the U.S. and this has resulted in an increasing interest and priority for manufacturers to export their products. ExporTech, established by the NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership and the U.S. Commercial Service of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is a program that provides national export assistance in order to help new business or existing businesses to enter or expand into global markets, respectively. This program mainly includes a structured export strategy development process which assists about 8 firms who intend on accelerating their growth and development in the global market. Overall, since 2006, ExporTech has integrated 220 programs, catered to 1,122 companies in 36 states and Puerto Rico, and generated a total sales of $500 million, to date.
In California, ExporTech has launched a CMTC Program which includes a session each month, for a period of 3 months. This program provides training in exploring the most efficient export strategy opportunities and practices, creating an export plan, guidance in selecting the appropriate countries to supply your products to, and expert guidance in logistics, regulation, banking, and distribution. With this program, a business could start exporting in as less as 3 months! Previous participants have positively benefited through this program. For instance, Diamond Wipes International, from Chino CA, stated that CMTC’s program enabled them to diversify into various new global markets, thus increasing their sales by more than $500,000 and providing immense future growth.
The cost of the program is $5000. However, one can participate in the scholarship program, where a company will attend the ExporTech program for a cost of $750, provided that the company agrees to introduce another non-competing company to attend a program in the future. Nevertheless, this scholarship program is non-applicable if a firm’s export sales have increased by more than $100,000, one year post the program. If so, the rapidly growing firm will have to provide CMTC $5000.
An industry that has displayed immense growth in terms of exports in Southern California is the Aerospace industry. In 2014, the industry exports were more than double the imports, resulting in a trade surplus of $61.6 billion. Out of these, civilian aircrafts accounted for almost half of the exports. This value has been fairly consistent ever since then. Similarly, the Center for Economic Development at USC has launched a program called AMPSoCal to cater to the aerospace and defense industry. This includes collaborating with the Tijuana and Baja region, which consists about 500 U.S. multinational companies. Likewise, in 2017, CMTC organized a “Manufacturers Identifying Business Opportunities Tour” to Baja, Mexico, with an objective to provide knowledge and direction for small-medium sized manufacturers in terms of potential exporting opportunities. Due to the wide opportunity available in the market, calculating to about $11 billion worth exports, a wide number of agreements on building a connection between California and Baja are being discussed. Thus, it is evident that CMTC has helped identify and create a wide range of potential opportunities in order for businesses to expand into new markets. If you have an extra production capacity and a comparative advantage in the production, ExporTech’s CMTC Program will help develop a strategy and provide guidance to you.
If you would like to receive more information about this program, Contact Elizabeth Glynn, Export Advisor, CMTC at 310.984.0728 or [email protected]