Major Export Conference Coming To Detroit In October
The biggest export conference this year in North America is coming to Detroit and Windsor, Canada Oct. 24-27.
The 2010 International District Export Conference, "Capitalizing on America's Export Advantages in Green and Innovation," will be held at the Detroit Marriott Renaissance Center, with several sessions and tours across the Detroit River in Windsor, Ontario.
It's a meeting of all 58 District Export Councils from across the country, and it's open to the public as well, said Terrence D. Kalley, chairman of the Eastern Michigan District Export Council.
"You'll have more exporting brainpower in that conference than any other event of the year, I can guarantee you that," Kalley said. "And we're trying to bring in Michigan companies and teach them how to export. We want all the resources in place to take a person who knows nothing about exporting and connect them to the world."
Despite the perception that Michigan and the United States have declined as exporting powers, the U.S. still exports $1 trillion a year of goods and services overseas -- Michigan alone, $35 billion, said Richard Corson, director of the U.S. Commercial Service's regional Export Assistance Center in Pontiac.
And in last January's State of the Union address, President Obama announced an effort to double American exports in the next five years. This conference, being organized by DEC volunteers, is part of that effort.
Corson said today's top American exports are services like law and accounting, which fly completely under the economic radar, along with complex manufactured goods such as IT equipment, medical devices, pollution control equipment, process control equipment, automotive equipment and processed foods.
Kalley's firm, Bright Solutions International LLC of Troy, exports products that find tiny leaks in fluid systems using specialized dyes and lights, so even a pinhole leak will fluoresce brightly. Kalley said he's used the U.S. Commercial Service to sell his products in more than 30 foreign countries.
"I've been a consumer of Department of Commerce Commercial Service services," Kalley said. "For example, they found us a distributor in France, for a reasonable, market-based fee."
Teaching other Michigan and U.S. companies how to do that is the aim of the event.
The event will focus on areas where the U.S. has a competitive advantage, including green technology and highly innovative products.
Around 500 people are expected for the conference.
Speakers are to include cabinet-level officials from the U.S., Canada and Mexico, the co-founder and president of Pixar animation Ed Catmull, the director of sustainability at Wal-Mart, a speaker from Google on using the Web to market internationally, Fred Keller, the CEO of Cascade Engineering of Grand Rapids, and more.
Check www.decconference.com for speaker updates.
The conference agenda includes presentations on green supply chains, green export oppportunities, world trade agreements, customs regulations, intellectual property strategies, the effects of the latest computing technologies, and tours of the Ford Rouge Plant and Henry Ford Museum tour.
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