Forging New Trade Ties Area Businesses Band Together To Seek Share Of Foreign Markets

They’re the trading posts of the 21st century.

Like their predecessors, they are information hubs, but the small talk may involve bills of lading instead of mining claims.

Postings might be on the Internet or CD-ROM, not a crude handbill.

Goods for sale might be beans, but they might be microchips, too.

And the end of the trail might be Korea, not Montana.

Businesses around the Northwest are coalescing in trade partnerships that help participants reach new export markets.

A week ago, the Spokane Regional International Trade Alliance became the latest addition to a network that extends from Seattle to Missoula.

The structures vary. Resources vary. Government involvement varies. But the goal is universal: expansion of business and cultural ties overseas by sharing assets.

Organizers of the Spokane alliance say their objective is an organization that will build on the experience of other Northwest exporters, linking veterans and novices alike to networks that relay market information around the globe faster than 19th Century telegraphers ever dreamed.

The group also wants to develop new promotional materials to enhance the region’s image as a place to do business - and live - on a global scale.

“We need more partners,” said Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce Chairwoman Chris Schnug.

“Competition has gone global. Telecommuters jump continents at the click of a button.”

Trade has always been important to Washington, but until recently its impact was deeper than it was wide.

The state ranks fifth in the value of its export goods, and is the most trade-dependent of all states.

In 1994, the most recent year for which complete statistics are available, exports that originated in the state were worth $26 billion, just over one-fifth the value of all goods produced.

That was despite a drop in shipments by The Boeing Co., traditionally the leader - by far - in the value of goods sold overseas.

Agricultural exports, everything from wheat to mint, were valued at $3 billion.

About 200 Spokane companies export. Of those, the largest 58 report combined overseas sales of about $85 million annually.

Idaho exports, though small by comparison with Washington’s, have exploded in the last six years. The value of non-farm goods has soared six-fold to $1.65 billion, and agricultural commodities have more than doubled over the same period to $895 million.

In 1994, the state led all others in the pace of export growth with a 25 percent burst.

Regional experts say foreign sales grow as business and government officials pool their knowledge.

“Trade is about people,” observed Mic Dinsmore, executive director of the Port of Seattle. “Business will follow.”

He said Spokane trails bigger cities by three years in focusing on export development, but predicted the inland region will become increasingly active in the world economy.

There has been a local network of exporters for years.

The Inland Northwest World Trade Council meets monthly to hear speakers and discuss the latest deals. The Port of Seattle reopened an office in the city three years ago, and other agencies, from the Small Business Administration to the Spokane Public Library, also offer information and assistance.

Farm interests have been able to turn to the International Marketing Program for Agricultural Commodities and Trade at Washington State University.

Other campuses have also been a resource, particularly Mukogawa Ft. Wright Institute, which brings hundreds of Japanese students to Spokane each year, and Whitworth College, which launched a masters in international management program three years ago.

To exploit those ties, the alliance has proposed the distribution of information packages tailored specifically to visiting students.

Although finally scuttled by budget woes last year, the city’s International Development office also nurtured links with foreign businessmen and cultural visitors alike during its 10-year existence, according to former director Bob Scott.

“We made Spokane more international and, I think, set the stage,” he said. “We gave visibility to organizations and events.”

Business, he noted, was not interested in sponsoring a trade-development effort in the mid-1980s, when the region’s economy was languishing.

The new alliance will receive some start-up money from the city and the county. The rest is being raised among businesses in the area.

Other trade groups are eager to assist Spokane.

Seattle’s export-promotion effort was nearly as fragmented as Spokane’s when the port and Chamber of Commerce formed the Trade Development Alliance of Greater Seattle five years ago, Executive Director Bill Stafford said.

The alliance includes the city of Seattle, King and Snohomish counties, two labor unions, and 200 corporate members.

He said substantial participation in the Seattle alliance by local governments proves valuable when working on deals in Asia, where bureaucrats may play a major role in doing business.

Understanding how each country does business, then making that information available to companies looking for export opportunities is one of the alliance’s main objectives, Stafford said.

“We as a country are going to have to get a little swifter in the way we do business,” he said, “It’s putting people together and having a single focus.”

The region’s most imposing private trade alliance was formed in Portland eight years ago, when Portland General Electric created the Portland World Trade Center by obtaining a license from the World Trade Centers Association in New York.

The association consists of a network of 284 centers around the world.

Administrative Manager Catherine DeVaul estimated the Portland center supports tens of millions of dollars worth of trade from its offices in two downtown buildings, where space is sublet to trade-related businesses, organizations and government agencies.

“You get folks working together in a town, that’s pretty dynamic,” DeVaul said.

She said alliances and other organizations are coming into their own because small business does not have the time to chase down all the information and documentation necessary to do business overseas.

“We try to make it one stop,” she said.

Tacoma’s World Trade Center dates to 1977, but began extending its reach statewide only a year and a half ago.

Executive Director Connie Bacon said center officials hope to plug businesses in small and midsized cities into the world trade center network of more than 400,000 businesses.

The association’s databases not only allow members to identify opportunities, local offices can make the initial contact and qualify the would-be trade partners.

“It’s almost like having lots of divisions of companies around the world,” she said.

Bacon said she visited with Spokane officials as they laid the foundations for the alliance. When they know what services they need, the Tacoma center is ready to respond, she said.

Montana is also just starting, with the formation of a World Trade Center at the University of Montana.

Volunteer Director Sam Courtney said Montana exports are among the lowest in the country, but the potential will improve as high-tech industries like biotechnology and environmental remediation grow.

The center will use UM students, as well as those on other Montana campuses, to research trade possibilities, Courtney said.

Montana’s center is privately funded, but Courtney noted that Gov. Mark Racicot has agreed to chair the organization’s board.

Idaho Gov. Phil Batt has also taken an active interest in promoting trade. His Economic Stimulation Committee last year recommended formation of an International Trade Institute, and organizational meetings are already under way.

“The objective is to have a group that is very proactive and can serve in an advocacy role for international trade,” said David Christensen, head of the Division of International Trade within the Department of Commerce.

Batt himself was in Guadalajara, Mexico, two weeks ago to sign a sister state agreement with Jalisco.

Washington state operates a network of overseas offices through the Department of Trade and Economic Development. Director Steve Odom said public-private partnerships are becoming a popular way for businesses to assure they get the help they need.

The U.S. Department of Commerce also makes its resources available to businesses, said Lisa Kjaer, director of the Seattle office.

“We’re delighted to see organizations like this spring up,” she said.

“I think there is a tremendous infrastructure out there in international trade,” said Spokane alliance President John Wagner. “We just haven’t tapped into it.”

Wagner said there may be as many as 80 public and private entities with resources the Spokane area can tap to boost itself into the international market.

The alliance will begin establishing ties to those groups based not only on what they can do for Spokane, but what Spokane can do for them, he said.

In the fraternity of international traders, Wagner said, “One-sided relationships just don’t work.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo Graphic: Washington exports