Export manufacturing has recently become the unsung hero of the U.S. economy. Despite all the public focus on the U.S. trade deficit, little attention has been paid to the fact that the country’s exports have been growing more than seven times faster than GDP since 2005. As a share of the U.S. economy, in fact, exports are at their highest point in 50 years.
The Port of Oakland wants to reroute that trip, and is battling powerful rivals in a competition for precious goods. Its leaders have rolled the dice on a bold, $1.2 billion solution: turn the old Oakland Army Base into an ultra-efficient port that links ships directly to trains, reducing truck traffic, expanding the port’s cargo business and securing the Bay Area’s role in the 21st-century global shipping economy.
Within five years, higher manufacturing exports due to a widening cost advantage over China and other major economies could add $20 billion to $60 billion in output to Mexico’s economy annually. And thanks to the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), U.S. manufacturers of components for everything from automobiles to computers assembled in Mexico also stand to benefit, according to new research by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
California Governor Jerry Brown is scheduled to reopen a trade office in China, the state’s third- largest market, after exports to the world’s most populous nation slipped in 2012.
LONG BEACH, Calif. — Just before officials at the Port of Los Angeles unanimously approved a plan for a vast new railyard last month, the mayor of Long Beach was incensed. How dare they, he angrily asked at a public meeting, value the lives of residents on Los Angeles’s side of the border more than those who live in his city.
California Governor Jerry Brown will lead a trade and investment delegation of 75 members on a one-week visit to China beginning next Wednesday. Brown and the delegation will visit Shanghai next Friday when the California-China Trade & Investment Office will reopen after a similar one closed in 2003. The office is to be funded with $1 million in private-sector funds raised by the Bay Area Council, a business group in the San Francisco Bay Area.