Remarks at the Americas Competitiveness Forum Opening Ceremony Thank you, Mayor Reed, for the kind introduction.
I want to thank you, and the city and people of Atlanta, for your gracious hospitality in co-hosting the 2010 Americas Competitiveness Forum.
This is the fourth annual Americas Competitiveness Forum, and Atlanta has been our co-host and partner now for three of the four.
On behalf of President Obama and all of us at the U.S Department of Commerce, I am delighted to join Mayor Reed in welcoming everyone here this morning.
With nearly one thousand high-level leaders in government, business, and academia here from throughout the Americas, the ACF comes at important moment for each of us.
There are myriad challenges nations in our hemisphere face.
We are still working to recover from a global economic crisis the likes of which many of us have never seen. We face the urgent need to expand jobs and opportunity for our people.
At the same time, we continue to face issues that were pressing well before his crisis hit such as an overheating climate and major disparities in access to education and wealth.
To solve these challenges, we’re going to need to work together. We’re going to need every bright mind we can find to push the envelope in technological innovation, in business creation and in public policy to address these challenges.
Seeking closer cooperation among every nation represented here today has been a priority since the very beginning of the Obama Administration.
At the Summit of the Americas last year, President Obama committed to forging a new era of engagement and cooperation with our neighbors in the Hemisphere.
He pledged that the United States will seek an equal partnership, one built on mutual respect, shared values, and common interests.
And I’m here in Atlanta today to once again renew that pledge.
Because have no doubt: the nations of North and South America will rise and fall together.
Every nation at the ACF arrives with her own strengths and expertise.
Ultimately, many of the discussions held today and tomorrow will lay the groundwork for boosting trade among nations in this hemisphere.
I come from Washington State, where I had the honor of serving as Governor for eight years.
And I saw up close how indispensable trade within the Americas was to the well-being of my constituents and to the United States.
And the trade numbers certainly bear this out. Last year, two-way merchandise trade within the region totaled $446 billon.
Half of U.S. energy imports come from the Western Hemisphere, and we are the region’s largest investor and source of remittances.
But just looking at this trade in dollars misses its real significance.
When you get right down to it, trade between the United States, and the entire Western Hemisphere is really about one thing.
Unlocking our full potential…The potential of our people…The potential of our businesses…And the potential we have to build a world that is safer and more prosperous for our children.
We can do this by creating an open investment and trade environment that allows businesses, entrepreneurs and policy makers to bring their respective strengths to the table and spur the type of innovation and economic growth that we could never achieve alone.
When we do that, we open up some amazing avenues for collaboration.
Take a look around the Hemisphere at large scale programs being deployed to lay the groundwork for even more innovative and productive communities.
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce
