Exports from Northwest Arkansas companies hit $699 million last year, an increase of nearly 5 percent over 2012.
"It's a nice increase and one we expected to see," said Dan Hendrix, president and chief executive officer of the World Trade Center Arkansas.
The International Trade Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce, released a report last week showing Northwest Arkansas was one of 200 Metropolitan Statistical Areas reporting annual export growth.
Northwest Arkansas' Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Washington, Benton and Madison counties in Arkansas and McDonald County, Mo. There are 388 Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the United States.
Food manufacturing was Northwest Arkansas' largest export, accounting for $292 million, down from $320 million in 2012.
James Bledsoe, international trade specialist with the U.S. Export Assistance Center, part of the International Trade Administration, said the nation as a whole exported fewer items categorized as food manufacturing last year.
"It could be down for a number or reasons," he said.
Those reasons include some foreign bans on U.S. meat products. For example, the Agriculture Department announced last month China was barring pork imports from six U.S. processing plants because they use a feed additive China bans.
Bledsoe said exports could also be down because of increased demand for some products domestically.
Boon Tan, director of Asia Trade Development for the World Trade Center Arkansas, said it's not surprising to see food manufacturing lead the area's exports because of the presence of large local companies such as Tyson Foods, Simmons Foods and George's.
Arkansas' food exports were $747 million, making it the state's third largest export.
The state's exports hit $7.2 billion in 2013, down from $7.6 billion in 2012 but up from $5.6 billion in 2011.
"The largest export area for Arkansas is aerospace," Tan said.
Aerospace falls into the transportation equipment manufacturing category that accounts for $2.1 billion of the state's $7.2 billion in exports last year. Northwest Arkansas companies exported $72.2 million in transportation equipment in 2013.
Bledsoe said export groups are also helping spread the word, making sure companies of all sizes see exporting as a possibility.
"It is not getting the attention it needs or deserves," he said.
He points to the National Export Initiative as a way the federal government is trying to change that. President Obama launched the initiative in 2010 with a goal to double the nation's exports by the end of this year. U.S. exports were $700 billion in 2009 and $2.3 trillion in 2013.
The program is now in a new phase called NEI/NEXT.
"They saw the National Export Initiative was working with the gradual increase of exports and wanted to put more emphasis on this," Bledsoe said. "This is good for exporting."
Business on 01/21/2015