Recently I came across a report from International Trade Administration (www.trade.gov/mas/ian )regarding Florida Exports, Jobs and Foreign Investment from June 2012. The report had some interesting facts that I thought i will share. Florida is were i operate my business so i also have some selfish reasons to share this with you:
1. 37,687 companies exported from Florida in 20009 of those 36,109 were Small and Medium Sized enterprises (SME)
2. 67% of Florida's total exports are from SMEs
3. The largest trading partners are Switzerland ($7.3 billion in export sales), Brazil ($5.3 billion), Venezuela ($4.5 billion), Canada ($4.1 billion) and Colombia ($2.8 billion)
These figures seem impressive, however, when I see these figures i think of the challenges and opportunities of exporting. Consider these other figures from the Census Bureau (www.census.gov):
1. Florida has 491,249 private non farm establishments
2. Total number of firms in Florida is 2,009,589 for 2009
Do you see it? According to these figures only 7% of businesses in Florida engaged in exporting! I know some of you might point out that private non farm establishments are not the same as companies but even accounting for different types of establishments there is still a vast number of Florida companies that do not export. The opportunity to expand our exports is enormous! Do you see the second opportunity? Most of our exports are going to South America, a few to Europe. What about Africa, Central America, Asia? There are numerous places were Florida businesses can expand and export. I see these challenges as opportunities and as we all well know running a business is about seizing opportunities.
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