January 25, 2010 - The International Trade Commission (ITC) released a report on Jan. 19 detailing the current state of small- and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs) participation in U.S. merchandise and services exports. The report, requested by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), is the first in a series of three by ITC to describe the role of SMEs in U.S. exports and fill in information gaps in study on the topic. For the purposes of the reports, SMEs are defined as businesses with 500 or fewer full-time employees.
USTR is expected to rely on information and data from the reports in evaluating issues such as trade barriers, customs facilitation, trade promotion and international local agent requirements. With the aid of the findings of the studies, USTR hopes to work toward ensuring policies and negotiating positions that make it easier for SMEs to export, which would lead to domestic job creation.
Some of the key findings in the report include conclusions that: companies that export are more likely to grow quickly, pay more and have more jobs than similarly-situated companies that do not; small businesses have a growing chance to export services and products due to technological advances and government programs; and SMEs are more actively engaged in exporting to higher-income small markets such as Australia, Hong Kong and Israel, than they are with large emerging markets such as China and India.
The full ITC report, "Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: Overview of Participation in U.S. Exports" is available at
www.usitc.gov/publications/332/pub4125.pdf.