Today, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker announced NEI/NEXT – a data-based, customer service-driven initiative to ensure that more American businesses can fully capitalize on markets that are opening up around the world. Through five core objectives, NEI/NEXT will build on Administration-wide achievements under the National Export Initiative (NEI), to help all businesses reach the 95 percent of consumers who live outside the United States.
Under the NEI, the United States has had four straight record-breaking years of exports – hitting an all-time high of $2.3 trillion dollars last year – up $700 billion from 2009. The NEI has been instrumental in strengthening high-level commercial advocacy on behalf of U.S. companies, increasing small business participation in trade events, partnering with regions to develop export plans, expanding strategic partnerships to promote exports, implementing our trade agreements, enforcing U.S. trade rights, and driving the most ambitious trade agenda in a generation.
President Barack Obama issued the following statement today about NEI/NEXT: “The National Export Initiative has been a remarkable success,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker. “NEI/NEXT is the next phase of this program and will help connect more of the 95% of consumers that live outside our borders. More and more American companies are seeing the value of selling their goods and services all over the world, but there are still many businesses that focus solely on the domestic market. They are missing out on potential opportunities for growth, and that is why we need NEI/NEXT to help spur every opportunity for these businesses to export.” In a new economic report released today by the Department of Commerce, data shows that nearly one-third of the country’s economic growth since mid-2009 has been driven by exports. Nearly 30,000 businesses have started exporting for the first time. And most importantly, since 2009, the number of jobs supported by exports has grown by 1.6 million to more than 11.3 million – the highest in 20 years.
Yet still, too many American firms remain focused on domestic markets. Less than 5 percent of U.S. companies export, and more than half of those exporters sell to only one market. To help bridge that gap, and look for new opportunities to help U.S. businesses export, the Department of Commerce, along with 20 federal agency partners last year began to take a fresh look at the NEI and develop strategies that would help make trade a central part of America’s economic DNA. The end product of that interagency review resulted in five key strategies to help more U.S. companies reach more markets. The five objectives of NEI/NEXT include: Underlying this entire strategy will be an effort to support the creation of improved data to help companies make decisions, to help communities integrate exports into their economic development plans, and to help us – as a government – gather feedback and continuously improve our efforts.
For more information on NEI/NEXT, including the strategic framework and fact sheet on the initiative and an interactive map showing state-by-state success stories please visit –http://www.trade.gov/neinext To read Secretary Pritzker’s remarks at The Atlantic, please visit:http://www.commerce.gov/news/secretary-speeches/2014/05/13/us-secretary-commerce-penny-pritzker-announces-next-phase-nationa
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce
