“Regrettably, some small businesses, particularly manufacturers, may only be able to grow their business by expanding to foreign markets, which require substantial investments in time and money to properly develop,” said Snowe, Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. “Too much is at stake for our economy to ignore the barriers found in Advocacy’s new report. We must ensure that small firms can easily obtain information and counseling to help them better evaluate and take advantage of foreign markets.”

The study, “Costs of Developing a Foreign Market for a Small Business: The Market & Non-Market Barriers to Exporting by Small Firms,” was prepared by Palmetto Consulting, Inc. with funding from the Office of Advocacy. It explores the market and non-market barriers to exporting experienced by a range of small businesses. The report is available at http://www.sba.gov/advo/.

“As this study reveals, for small businesses, there is a distinct gap between the desire to export and ability to understand how to get the job done in an efficient way. Small and medium sized companies are often hesitant to engage in the exporting of their product, because they are fearful of the many unfamiliar intricacies involved in doing business in a foreign market,” Snowe added. “I am committed to helping small firms more easily evaluate and prepare for potential exporting opportunities.”

The International Trade Administration estimates that about 230,700 small and medium sized firms exported goods worth $182 billion or about 29 percent of U.S. goods exported.

A key finding in the report is that the firms studied “generally initiated exporting in reaction to customer inquiries, not as a planned strategy.” Most of the businesses surveyed steered clear of foreign markets, believing the investment needed is too costly and too time consuming. Furthermore many small firms considering exporting concluded that their time is more profitably spent on domestic operations.

Snowe has introduced legislation to help ease that burden on small businesses attempting to develop export markets - the“Small Manufacturers Assistance, Recovery and Trade (SMART) Act,” S.1977, which would provide direct aid to manufacturers by retooling and introducing new resources to strengthen existing programs to immediately improve competitiveness and encourage growth in manufacturing.

• improve and expand manufacturing and international trade counseling services available through the agency’s District Offices, Small Business Development Centers, Women’s Business Centers and SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives); and
• increase the number of SBA representatives at U.S. Export Assistance Centers (USEACs).