Photo by Janett Blythe U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield dicusses his presentation with Ying Juan Rogers, executive vice president of the Kentucky World Trade Center, before the start of a conference on Onternational trade at West Kentucky Community & Technical College June 21.

More than 40 people recently attended a two-day conference at West Kentucky Community & Technical College to help businesses expand through international trade. Ying Juan Rogers, executive vice president of the Lexington-based Kentucky World Trade Center, said doing business beyond Kentucky's borders is no easy task. But it can bring many different opportunities and benefits if businesses are prepared.

"Whether you are a small company just getting started or a large, well-established corporation, importing and exporting products and services can be very rewarding and exciting," Rogers said. "We're trying to get a message out (to businesses) that we're here to support you and it's important to make that step to trade with international companies."

The Kentucky World Trade Center is a nonprofit membership organization that helps Kentucky companies import, export and establish overseas operations. With offices in Lexington and Louisville, the KWTC is leading provider of trade services in the commonwealth.

Rogers said exporting products is vital in supporting U.S. employment because a million dollars in exports creates about 1,000 jobs.
"In 2008, we had exported about $1.7 trillion in the United States total that resulted in about 10 million jobs," she said. "We really want to encourage companies to look beyond selling domestically."

Why go global?

Businesses should consider in going global to:
• Expand the market for their products.
• Increase sales and profits.
• Extend product life cycles.
• Create an outlet for saturated domestic capacity.
• Protect against seasonal downturns.
• Reduce impact of domestic business cycles.
• Outmaneuver their competition.
• Introduce new or modified products for export.
• Impact the local economy.
• Turn a small business into a larger one by exporting.

Last year, the KWTC responded to more than 500 individual service requests and organized high-profile trade programs featuring business and political leaders from Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Kentucky has emerged as a leader among the 50 states in expanding its international trade and over the past decade ranked sixth in export growth.

Center services

KWTC's relationship with the World Trade Centers Association, a global network of more than 300 world trade centers in 101 countries, allows members access to the global marketplace. Rogers encourages businesses to find out more about what the center can do for them. It provides cross-cultural training, global sourcing and procedures, export documentation and control, free-trade agreements, and certificates of origin. Customized training is designed to keep business and companies current on the changes in the global marketplace.

Trade research and counseling include basic market and industry analysis; foreign marketing strategies; country economic and political risk information; foreign standards and transaction; government regulations; export tariff and import duty rate; trade leads and agreements; and finding suppliers, buyers and distributors overseas.

Importing, too

Besides working with companies to export their products, KWTC helps them import goods and products.

"A lot of people are thinking that importing is hurting U.S. companies, because we're buying things from China and from Brazil, so we don't have those (American) companies here anymore," Rogers said.

Although the center focuses on exporting, importing means cheaper goods available to American consumers, she said. "We'll also have a variety of goods that we would not be able to have in the U.S. if we weren't able to bring them in from overseas."

Rogers said membership in the KWTC affords many benefits to large and small companies and at different membership levels — nonprofit, corporate and patron — to fit each company's needs. Center services and research are included at no extra charge for most levels.
Information: www.kwtc.org

Janett M. Blythe, a former reporter for The Paducah Sun, has been director of public relations at West Kentucky Community & Technical College for 16 years.