Nevada export efforts are said to be lacking

Thursday, March 16, 2000 | 11:24 a.m.

Nevada exports

The Massachusetts Institute for Social and Economic Research tracks world trade from all 50 states, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau and foreign trade statistics from the U.S. Department of Commerce. In 1999, Nevada's top five exporting sectors were:

Nevada's mining industry used to have its own category, but now contributes raw materials to several of the 33 categories ranked among the state's exports. In addition to those contributions, fabricated metal products ranked sixth and primary metal industries ranked ninth among the state's exports.

Nevada's top five export markets in 1999 were Canada ($515.1 million), Japan ($86.4 million), France ($74.9 million), Mexico ($61.5 million) and United Kingdom ($59.8 million).

Nevada ranked 45th in the nation in the total value of exports it sent to global markets in 1999.

That rankles Las Vegas businessman Ed Swindle, who is planning a grass-roots campaign to persuade lawmakers to increase state spending on economic development.

It's a campaign that perennially falls on deaf ears in the state, Swindle said, but the unsuccessful candidate for governor in 1998 is recruiting other business people to write letters and twist arms in the Legislature. Swindle, whose company manufactures chrome plating, wants state officials to at least hire an expert who can jump-start the state's sagging world trade performance.

But Bob Shriver, executive director of the Commission on Economic Development, says help is on the way.

Shriver will introduce a new global trade and investment director next week. The new director, Alan DiStefano, not only would be in charge of expanding trade relations overseas on behalf of Nevada businesses but will also attempt to get grant money to support international trade and teach business people how to get government contracts.

DiStefano, who joined the state office Monday, has been in international business development for 26 years and has been in the medical equipment field in Reno for the last 16 years.

"We're delighted and certainly supportive of the plan to hire a trade officer," Swindle said of the plan. "But it's going to take more than one man. We need a team, not one individual."

Swindle, chairman of the Affirmative-Business-Coalition, a grass-roots organization supporting trade, already has written letters to Gov. Kenny Guinn and Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt about the need for additional resources.

He said he and other Nevada business people are concerned that gaming revenues will level off or drop, that Nevada's industrial base will not increase and Nevada will become a "boom-bust state."

"Initially, Nevada's funding for international economic development should approximate the budgets of Utah and Idaho that allocated nearly $1 million exclusively for export trade and foreign investment development," Swindle said in a letter to Hunt.

"Without an independent export sales staff and an experienced international economic specialist spearheading export counseling and leads, conferences, overseas exhibitions, development programs, etc., how can export results for Nevada ever change?" the letter asks.

Swindle said Nevada's fortunes took a negative turn in 1998 when Peter Cunningham, the state's international trade expert, moved to Pennsylvania, eventually taking the position of executive director of the state's Center for International. Cunningham went from an agency with a budget of about $100,000 to one with $7 million.

Pennsylvania, the No. 10 ranking state in the total value of exports in 1999, has overseas offices in 16 cities worldwide to facilitate trade for the state.

Cunningham refuses to say anything negative about Nevada's funding of trade, but said the state could get a start by collaborating with other states in the region to finance an office. That's how Pennsylvania got started on some of its offices, he said, and when the state's exports grew to the point where it could support its own overseas representative, it went on its own.

Shriver concurs. Through contacts in the Western Governors Association, he said he may attempt to negotiate establishing an overseas office with Utah, Arizona or Idaho.

As far as the office being underfunded, Shriver said some statistics are misleading. He said some states include travel and tourism budgets within the realm of economic development, so their budgets look bigger than Nevada's. In Nevada, the Commission on Tourism is separate from the Commission on Economic Development and there's a greater emphasis on tourism because it's the state's top industry.

With a total budget of about $3.3 million a year, Shriver's staff of 27 runs rural community development, business attraction and retention (a marketing arm), a procurement outreach program that teaches Nevada businesses how to contract with government and the Nevada Film Office, which recruits motion picture studios to film in the state.

The office also contracts for a "Made in Nevada" program that publicizes goods manufactured in the state as well as operating the international trade office.

One of the employees hired after Cunningham's departure, Gayle Anderson, is an expert in foreign protocol. Shriver said her knowledge is valuable to the office because so much of international trade is based on relationship building and the area of protocol involves setting up meetings between Nevada businessmen and foreign consuls.

Last week, Anderson led a delegation of Nevada businesspeople to Tokyo to develop relationships with Japanese companies interested in food additives developed in Nevada.

Swindle doesn't deny that protocol plays a role in the international trade game. But he feels it's only one piece of the puzzle.

"Undoubtedly, Ms. Anderson has been and remains an asset by representing Nevada in protocol functions," Swindle wrote to Guinn. "However, protocolary events with consuls general and honorary consuls (often buying their consular titles) have not cemented the winning strategy for the other states gaining higher exports than Nevada."