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President
Tony Livoti
MBITA

Vice President
Shay Adams
AIM Medical Sales

Members

Dr. Edward Valeau
Els Group LLC
Hartnell College
President Emeritus

Marcelo Siero
IdeasSiero

Jim Faith
Jim Faith & Associates

Cristina Polesel
MBITA
General Manager

This newsletter has been created by MBITA's editor
Cristina Polesel
cristina@mbita.org

MBITA Corporate Sponsor
Veritrade Ltd.

Colombia: A Growing Market to Explore

As we are all aware, U.S. and Colombia finally signed a Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA) so let's look at some facts and explore some possibilities what this particular TPA means for the U.S.

In 2010 Colombia’s total imports were approximately $46 billion of which $12 billion were supplied by the U.S., amounting to 26% of all Colombia´s imports. Prior to this TPA, U.S. exports to Colombia grew from approximately $5 billion in 2007 to $12 billion in 2010 - almost a 220% growth rate, making Colombia an attractive, close and growing market to explore.

The Colombia TPA would also open up a $134 billion service market in Columbia to highly competitive American companies, supporting jobs for American workers in sectors ranging from telecommunications to logistic, education and health care services.

The above is just a sampling of the kind of competitive intelligence that Veritrade can provide to enterprises of all sizes that want to conduct business in South America and China.

The above facts and figures are simple observations where a conclusion can be made that Columbia can be a good marketplace for America. More complex interpretations from Veritrade’s competitive intelligence services including specific industry analysis interpretations including identifying hard-to-find ‘qualified buyers’ in Latin America and China based on actual shipment data.

We are now working with MBITA and the TradePort network to bring this kind of competitive intelligence to the business community in California and other parts of the world in a more accessible and cost-effective way, especially for small businesses with limited budgets.

Please contact the MBITA office or Veritrade directly for more information on customized competitive intelligence requests or for any further details on Veritrade.

For more information and to support sustainable food by purchasing merchandise with the official logo, please visit
www.solsustech.com

The Emergence of Global SEO, SEM and Social Media in the Global Marketplace - Not Business as Usual

By Tony Livoti, MBITA President



Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) are becoming extremely important for any business that is marketing domestically or globally. As a non-profit international trade association we are finding SEO and SEM to be more and more relevant to help us reach our non-profit mission, of job creation by providing trade promotion services to primarily small businesses to support their exports and also imports because they create jobs also.

Even when the internet became accepted as a tool to facilitate and consummate global trade transactions a few years ago, a much newer and considerably more cost-effective 'business model' has emerged to help small businesses expand into foreign markets and that is, or course, direct marketing through the pervasive WWW.

Tom Friedman's 'The World is Flat' tells the story and has been for many years. We have a new kind of business environment where even some of the hallmarks of business wisdom espoused by the Harvard Business School do not necessarily apply now in our new business world.

With online 'target marketing' becoming more and more the strategy of choice to advertise and sell anything online, combined with the gobs of information now available to a foreign buyer in their own language, they already know everything about what someone is selling them before they contact someone to purchase, yes, the rules of the game have changed. And then the dynamics of traditional marketing in a foreign marketplace has changed dramatically. For example, you can now you can find a foreign buyer in a foreign search engine resulting in the very good possibility that you can work directly with the foreign buyer.

Social Media is also becoming another tool for small businesses to use when going global. This sector, like SEO and SEM, is very new to everyone and people around the globe are just now trying to get their hands on it to understand how it works and how it can be used for enterprises both global and domestic. This online revolution of user interaction in a social environment for business purposes is becoming a huge industry and we all look forward to how this ‘target marketing’ methodology will evolve in the coming years. I see Social Media in the global trade industry now being more of a marketing tool than an operational tool, but who knows. For example, a more simple and accessible method for smaller business to function within multi-national global supply chains can emerge through social media! Who among us would of thought about the importance of the Social Media revolution in the business world five years ago. Yes indeed, these are interesting times.

Most of the users of the WWW aren't English speaking, yet these countries are where most of the economic growth will occur in the next 50 years. It’s for this reason that MBITA and the TradePort network have recently conducted two seminars on Global eCommerce: ‘Global Trade for All – Online Solutions in partnership with the National Association Women Business Owners (NAWBO) on Nov. 15th, 2011 in Silicon Valley, and the most recent seminar in Santa Cruz, Ca. entitled ‘Compete Successfully in the Global Marketplace - Use the Web and Social Media and Go Global’ on Dec. 8, 2011.

MBITA is now planning an all day conference in the summer of 2012 on Global SEO, SEM and Social Media and we are now seeking experts in the SEO and SEM fields as guest presenters for the conference. If you are interested in being a presenter for this or any future MBITA/TradePort conference please go to the online form on MBITA’s website to and fill out a speakers submission form or call us at the MBITA office for more details.

Statement by Acting U.S. Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank on Passage of the Trade Agreements with Korea, Colombia and Panama

Acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank issued the statement below following Congressional passage of trade agreements with Korea, Colombia and Panama. The agreement with Korea is estimated to boost U.S. goods exports to that country by more than $10 billion, supporting 70,000 American jobs, while the Colombia and Panama agreements will immediately eliminate trade barriers for more than 80 percent of merchandise exports to those countries.

“I applaud Congress for approving the trade agreements with Korea, Colombia and Panama tonight. They will support tens of thousands of jobs here at home and strengthen our economic recovery. With the approval of these agreements, the Obama administration has taken a significant step forward in pursuing an ambitious trade agenda that will make U.S. companies more competitive around the world, while creating jobs here at home."

“These three trade agreements, along with the Trade Adjustment Assistance program that Congress has approved, represent a balanced approach to trade that not only opens up new opportunities for U.S. businesses but also provides support for American workers displaced by trade, so they can receive the training and assistance they need to find new jobs.”

Boosted by the President’s National Export Initiative, exports – which support nearly 10 million American jobs – have been leading the economic recovery, accounting for more than 13 percent of U.S. economic output in the first quarter of 2011. The bottom line is that the more products and services that U.S. companies sell abroad, the more they need to produce. And, the more they produce, the more people they need to hire, and that means good-paying jobs for Americans. These agreements will no doubt further strengthen our economy and create jobs.

For more information about the three trade agreements – how they will open market access for U.S. companies, how they will protect workers and how they will contribute to U.S. economic growth and recovery – please visit the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s website at www.ustr.gov/FTA.

Contact: United States Department of Commerce
Office of Public Affairs - Tel. 202-482-4883
Press release source article.

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The National Export Strategy is available also at
http://trade.gov and http://export.gov.
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Every few decades a new business trend, philosophy or technology is introduced into the marketplace that takes hold of the dos and don’ts of traditional business methodology and turns it on its head. The television, Satellites and the Internet are the most obvious. This periodic phenomena in the business world recently occurred at the ‘Global Trade for All – Online Solutions’ event in Silicon Valley produced by TradePort, the Monterey Bay International Trade Association (MBITA) and the National Association of Woman Business Owners - Silicon Valley Chapter.

Instead of having expert presentations for this all day event on compliance issues, logistics, traditional global marketing issues or trade finance we found ourselves being presented with and discussing new business models for the global trade industry that were mostly new to our fairly sophisticated and professional business audience. Such topics as the ‘Cloud’, ‘Search-Engine Optimization (SEO)’ and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) were discussed freely as very cost-effective and efficient marketing tools for our new global economy.



The conference also discussed how once sensitive shipping information that was privy to multi-nationals only, is now available online to all for a nominal fee. References were also made to various portals that not only connect you to the right importer or exporter in a foreign marketplace but also provide online solutions to complete the paperless trail of documents, licenses, etc., for a consummated global trade transaction.

Yes indeed, the global trade industry is changing dramatically carving out a level playing field in the global marketplace for all with internet access. Today’s new business environment was described beautifully by the ‘keynote’ speaker for dinner, Christine Crandell. She espoused how the ‘buyer’ is now in control of the sales transaction because the Web gives them all the information they need on the product before they purchase. The buyer needs to be ‘enabled’ by the salesperson, not ‘sold’ to.

Complete slide presentations and bios on all presenters for this event can be seen at http://www.mbita.org/events/globaltradeforall-agenda.html.

Lunch keynote speaker Pat Lynch, CEO and Editor in Cheif, WomensRadio.com and Womenscalendar.org

New Trade Frontier: Asia Pacific Region
by Ayse Oge

The Asia-Pacific region gains significant economic prominence as the rich world’s fiscal austerity intensifies and economic contraction threatens even some of Europe’s biggest economies and slowing emerging economies provide less of a cushion for global growth.

Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation November 11th, 2011 meeting held in Honolulu Hawaii, is a positive move forward in achieving the cooperation among 21 Asia-Pacific economies to develop ambitious approaches to economic challenges ahead. Asia-Pacific markets are large and expanding; APEC, the implementation of the U.S.-Korea trade agreement, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks are pillars of the U.S. strong and smart trade engagement in the region. The eight countries joining the U.S. in the zone would be Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

Leaders of the Asian Pacific countries agreed to take concrete steps toward building a “seamless regional economy” that will generate growth in three priority areas: strengthening regional economic integration and expanding trade, promoting green growth, and advancing regulatory convergence and cooperation.

Economies agreed to help small and medium-sized enterprises grow and better plug into global production chains. Breaking down barriers U.S. SME’s exporters face across the Asia-Pacific that includes customs delays and supporting them better protect their intellectual property are crucial to have them integrate fully into the region’s economy. Specifically we look to:

• Address tariff and non-tariff barriers to environmental goods and services.
• Adopt policies that promote effective innovation by encouraging competition and open markets.
  
• Improve the quality of regulatory systems and better align the U.S. regulatory approaches.
• Encourage APEC to be laboratory for some of the best and newest ideas in global commerce.

The Asia Pacific region is the current bright spot for the U.S to capitalize in tapping to the enormous base of potential growing consumers, increasing exports and creating jobs in the economy.

Ayse Oge is President of Ultimate Trade, International Trade Consulting, Speaking and Training. Her work has been featured by Fox Business Online, Bloomberg Business Week Online and she was quoted by Investor's Business Daily and American Express Open Business Online. She can be reached at oge@earthlink.net