We’re All International Now

I have one add to Eric’s excellent post on the Greater Seattle Chamber’s Intercity Study Mission to the Silicon Valley.  The trip is the the Chamber’s domestic study mission, as compared to the international trip that the Trade Development Alliance organizes for the Chamber…which this year travels to the UK.

But the Chamber’s Intercity trip to Silicon Valley was anything but domestic in nature. In our technology neighbor to the south we found an engineering work force that was 50 percent foreign born led by CEOs a majority of whom were also born overseas. We saw electric car company business models that are targeted at international markets, a social media platform that connects hundreds of millions of people across the world and schools that are preparing students for a life lived in an ever connected globe.

The Silicon Valley would not be the Silicon Valley without large international customers, without foreign talent and without important partnerships abroad.  The same, of course, is true for Greater Seattle’s technology sectors. In today’s globalized world, even a domestic study mission is an international study mission

Sabermetric Trade

I’ve been a stranger in these here parts recently but only because my beat—international trade and logistics—is busier than ever. International activity waits for no great recession.  But, given all the talk of China and global currency wars recently, I can’t resist pointing out this speech by Pascal Lamy, Director General of the WTO. The gist of it is the trade statistics which policy makers use to make decisions are outdated.   Here’s a particularly relevant section:

Daejeon Diary: Trees, Robots and Costco

Following up on Bill’s post about the Korea Study Mission, you can follow all the action of the trip here. The International Study Mission program has become the traveling university of the Greater Seattle area. For a region like ours which is so tied to the international economy, it is crucial our civic leadership understands the rest of the world.  In addition, we can learn from what others are doing to compete in the global economy and adapt those lessons to our region.

Selling Out International

Coming up tomorrow night is the second annual International Washington reception organized by the Trade Alliance and members of International Staff Group–which is a group of international organizations in our region who meet once a month to discuss issues of common interest, coordinate on activities and work on projects like the International Washington Reception.

This post isn’t a shameless plug for the reception because it’s sold out–we can’t fit another person into the place (no really, don’t call–we can’t get you in. Sorry!).   This fact and the incredible diversity of those attending,

Gotcha on the Gotchas

Nationally syndicated columnist Neal Peirce’s column which appears in the Seattle Times today should be taped on bulletin boards, forwarded in chain emails, become a cause of the week on Facebook and tweeted about throughout the land. He talks about the need for local officials to travel on business and study missions overseas.  Money paragraph:

Are we ready to retire the old bugaboo that any American mayor better think twice before visiting a foreign city — that the press back home will pillory him or her for “junketeering”?

Double Dare

Frank, in a comment on my previous post, Doubling Down on Exports, asks an excellent question: “is there any way to really achieve Obama’s goals of doubling exports other than a massive devaluation of the dollar?”  He anticipated my plan to address the currency issue in more detail in another post, mainly this one.

As I noted in my response to Frank, Obama has specifically mentioned the currency issue in relation to his plan to increase U.S. exports. Earlier this week Obama said, “one of the challenges that we’ve got to address internationally is currency rates and how they match up.”  Lots of people are complaining about China keeping the Yuan artificially low. But, we should remember that lots of countries over the last 30 years have been doing the same thing.  As if Toyota doesn’t have enough problems, they and

Doubling Down on Exports

It is not surprising that a U.S. Secretary of Commerce who hails from the most trade dependent state in America would lead the charge to get America to double its exports over the next five years as Obama called for last week in his State of the Union speech.  Today, Gary Locke added detailed cargo to the rhetorical container ship Obama steered into the ocean of politics last week (or, uh, something like that). Locke calls the effort to double our country’s exports the National Export Initiative (NEI).  The NEI will increase funding for export promotion, put more emphasis on advocating for U.S. exporters’ interests overseas and create an Export Promotion Cabinet.   The effort also calls for providing more access to credit for exporters by increasing funding for the Export Import Bank from $4 to $6 billion to be chiefly aimed at small and medium size businesses.

Foreign Talent

In reading the Seattle Times the other day about the signing of Felix I noticed the sidebar listing the largest Mariner contracts in team history (see list below). I noted that half of them went to international ball players, including the top three of Ichiro (Japan), King Felix (Venezuela) and Adrian Beltre (Dominican Republic). This got me to thinking about how important foreign talent is to our economy. Our companies and institutions are full of talented people from abroad.  In Major League Baseball, there is no limit on

Back to the Future

As we enter the new year are going back in time?  The New York Times has an interesting metric feature about our country’s trade deficit.  The interactive feature lists port cities’ exports and imports. Seattle, being a port city of some note itself, is listed. Only three ports have a trade surplus. They are Detroit, Miami and Pembina, North Dakota.*  All the rest of the ports import more than they export. Of course, Seattle area exports and imports aren’t confined to our ports.  We export lots of software but for U.S. government statistical purposes software is considered a service and so doesn’t show up in the trade statistics you ordinarily see. 

Who to Blame?

So Boeing’s opening a second line in South Carolina.  Inevitably, fingers will be pointed. But at whom?  Well,

“Times have changed,
the economy’s gotten worse;
Boeing in South Carolina,
I just want to stomp & curse;
Should we blame the government
or blame the big old boss
or should we blame the union for the loss?
No, Blame Canada! Blame Canada!
With all their beady little eyes
And flapping heads so full of lies
Blame Canada
Blame Canada
We need to form a full assault
It’s Canada’s fault!

Don’t blame us
because they flee
they don’t like gutter balls
but they like Governors coveting Argentines
It’s about customers
everyone likes to say
but does that make it all okay?
No,  blame Canada
 Blame Canada
It seems that everything’s gone wrong
Since Canada came along
Blame Canada
Blame Canada
They’re not even a real country anyway

My son could’ve been a machinist or an engineer,
Instead he burned up like kindling on great Mount Rainier
Should we blame the matches?
Should we blame the fire?
Or the doctors who allowed him to expire?
heck no!
Blame Canada
Blame Canada
With all their hockey hullabaloo
And that witch Anne Murray too
Blame Canada
Shame on Canada
For…
The move we must stop
The line we want back
The Laughter and fun
SC be undone
We must blame them and cause a fuss
Before somebody thinks of blaming uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuus!!!!

Warning: Video contains kids with potty mouths singing.

Moon Over Seattle

I’ll write this as quickly as I can before I get shot at point blank range for the corny title. Just came back from hearing United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon speak at a World Affairs Council sponsored event. The Secretary General spoke on what he asserts are four critical issues for our little spinning globe: 1) climate change; 2) nuclear weapons; 3) extreme poverty; and 4) security, peace and human rights issues.

As interesting as what Secretary General Ban said is, just as interesting for my beat is that he was here in the Greater Seattle area. It was the first time a sitting UN Secretary General has spoken in our region but he is also one of numerous international dignitaries that come through our region each year, including heads of state. We’re a mid-sized town in America but one with an outsized international profile.  Yes, a third of our jobs are tied to international trade in way or another but also the industries we are engaged in are global ones.  Plus, we have a huge global development sector here. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is headquartered in Greater Seattle but there are also 350 other global development organizations in our region, both big and small. They employ thousands of people and are active on every continent save Antarctica (and for all I know there’s someone from our region doing work there too). In other words, there’s a reason the U.N. Secretary General came to our region to talk about weighty global issues.

Up, Up and Away

Never to be accused of being a pessimist, I return after a long absence in these here parts with good news: Delta Airlines is not adding one but two new international routes to Sea-Tac Airport and expanding on another one.  Beginning in the summer of 2010, Delta will begin flying to Beijing, China and Osaka, Japan which just happen to be important cities of two of our region’s largest trading partners.  In addition, Delta is increasing the number of flights to Amsterdam per week from seven to ten (making it easier for Jules to get his Royale with Cheese).

As a sometimes frequent international traveler, this can only make my life better. And, isn’t that what we’re all here for? A side benefit, of course, is that because our region is so tied to the international economy, it’s going to make lots of other Puget Sounders’ lives better too.  It will strengthen our internationally-bent economy making it easier for our businesses to welcome their overseas customers and to travel to important markets. It will also make it easier for Chinese investors and tourists (of which we are seeing more lately; Japan is already one of our largest sources for tourists and investment) to spend their money here.

I’ve got the Delta Blues, in a good way.

Guess the Trading Partner

The Trade Alliance is compiling statistics on our region’s international trading partners for our Target Market Report. Lots of interesting nuggets our staff is mining. Guess who is Washington state’s:

• 5th largest export customer, $3.4 billion
• 5th largest importer, $3.8 billion
• 4th largest export customer excluding airplanes, $2.6 billion
• 3rd largest customer through our ports, $5.3 billion
• 3rd largest customer of agricultural products, $1.7 billion
• 2nd largest source of international students
• 3rd largest source of international visitors

The answer is, ladies and gentlemen:

More Cars Sold in China Than U.S.

Here’s a stat that snuck up on me. 

“For the first quarter of the year, 2.7 million cars were sold in China – besting U.S. sales of 2.2 million for the first time to become the world’s largest car market.”

There are many ways to look at this, two of which are:   a) good God, there goes our efforts on climate change; b) maybe China can pull us out of the recession. 

The CNN article tells us there are 100 Chinese automakers hoping to take advantage of the growing market, not to mention the multinational companies and government-owned entities like GM and Chrysler. A growing Chinese market would help with over capacity of cars out in the world. But, it would be even better if those cars were environmentally friendly. The Chinese are pushing for electric cars and Warren Buffet’s favorite car company is going electric.

But, most of the electricity in China is generated by coal. In other words, it’s a mixed up, muddled up, crazy world we live in. On the other hand, our region’s clean tech sector may stand to benefit.  Like I say, there’s a lot of ways to look at this.

Not Nearly as Good as We Think We Are

Eric has an interesting post on the stimulus bill’s programs to beef up broadband adoption in our country.  It’s also worth noting that in addition to penetration the U.S. lags behind in broadband speeds.

Probably hard to read the graph but we rank 9th. Japan is number one followed by Finland, Sweden and Korea.

Broadband is not the only technology we’re lagging in. We’re way behind in cell phone technology too.  This world we live in is not your father’s oldsmobile (speaking of another technology–cars–that we’re behind in), there’s lots of other countries doing interesting things. Let’s learn from and work with them.