Secretary's Speech

Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez
National Small Business Week Phoenix Awards
Washington, D.C.

Good morning everyone. I’m delighted to be here and to be part of the Phoenix Awards Breakfast.

Let me begin by congratulating your honored guests today.

The Phoenix Awards, which are being presented to disaster recovery winners, are aptly named. The phoenix was a bird in Egyptian mythology that symbolizes loss, from which comes renewal.

The four winners being honored here—John Campbell, Patrick Turley, Gregory Jenkins and Tommy Longo—represent renewal through their extraordinary efforts to bring energy and enterprise back to hard-hit communities.

One of government’s highest priorities continues to be restoring the hard-hit Gulf Coast communities into the economic mainstream.

I was there. I saw the devastation. Hurricane Katrina was the most destructive natural disaster in U.S. history. It left a legacy of personal tragedy and property loss. We saw a great outpouring of generosity and assistance. We also learned a lot of hard lessons.

President Bush and each of us in his administration are committed to helping the people of the Gulf Coast recover.

I know SBA has been working very hard to get loans out to businesses in the region.

At the Commerce Department, we launched the Hurricane Contracting Information Center, which is now at SBA. The Center helps U.S. companies, especially small-, minority-, women- and locally-owned firms that want to participate in rebuilding efforts.

Our Minority Business Development Agency directly assisted over 1,500 minority entrepreneurs and opened facilities in the Gulf Coast region.

I personally met with over 300 business and community leaders to discuss recovery efforts and GO Zone incentives.

The Gulf Coast region was also the site of the Commerce Department’s first-ever domestic trade mission. Traveling with me were representatives of over 30 major companies with at least $10 million to invest.

Among the results:

• Seaboard Marine added two freighters to the Port of New Orleans.
• Home Depot committed $57 million to the region.
• The Pritzker Group unveiled plans for a New Orleans Jazz Park.

I spent most of my career in the private sector, and I was very proud of the way that businesses of all sizes stepped up to the plate to help in the recovery effort.

Our goal is make sure the Gulf Coast communities come back better than ever and are full participants in our strong and vibrant economy.

The U.S. economy is the fastest growing of any industrialized nation.

• 180,000 new jobs were created in March.
• That’s nearly 8 million since August 2003—more than Japan and the EU combined.
• Unemployment is at a low 4.4 percent.
• We’ve had 43 straight months of job growth.
• Growth in 2006 (3.3 percent) was above the previous 15-year average.
• Real after tax income has risen by 10 percent—more than $2,900 per person—since President Bush took office.

President Bush’s pro-growth, low-tax policies helped drive these good numbers. So did small businesses. According to the National Federation of Independent Business:

• Small business owners represent 99 percent of all private sector employers in America.
• They create some 80 percent of new U.S. jobs.
• About five percent hold a patent on an innovative process or invention.

To keep on this growth trajectory and maintain our global leadership, we must keep this the best country in the world to do business.

How do we do this? We need to maintain an environment that encourages entrepreneurship. That means low taxes, less regulation, stable energy supplies, and open and fair trade.

First, our job in Washington is to develop sensible policies that encourage growth and create jobs. High on this list is tax relief. Tax cuts helped lead us out of recession. It’s time for Congress to make tax relief permanent.

We believe you in the private sector do a better job of capital allocation than the federal government. The entrepreneurial spirit of the American people is what drives our economy forward. NFIB reports that about half of new small businesses start with less than $10,000. And women and minorities are starting small businesses in record numbers.

Second, regulations need to be responsible and reasonable. We’ve made some progress. The regulatory burden on small businesses has been reduced. And small businesses now have a bigger voice on ways to improve regulation.

Third, we need to reduce America’s dependence on oil. The President’s “20 in10” plan will reduce our gas consumption 20 percent in the next 10 years.

This goal requires progress on two fronts:

• Reforming fuel economy standards to make cars more energy efficient.(Like we did with light trucks).
• Increasing the supply of alternative fuels.

We’re seeing our free-enterprise system get behind the President’s goal: companies, entrepreneurs and venture capital firms are investing in alternative fuel technologies.

Finding ways to use energy more efficiently and diversifying domestic sources will create a safer America, a more stable energy market, and provide new opportunities for American businesses.

Fourth, we must continue to open new markets. One of the big reasons our economy is doing well is because we are competing and winning in the global economy.

• In 2006, U.S. exports reached an all time high of over $1.4 trillion dollars. Exports grew by 13 percent.
• For the first time in nearly a decade, the rate of export growth out-paced import growth. (Imports grew by 11%).
• 96 percent of exporting companies were small and medium sized businesses (less than 500 employees).
• About 60 percent of exporting companies have fewer than 20 employees.

I encourage you to consider marketing to the 95 percent of the world’s customers who live beyond our borders. We have Commercial Service trade specialists in 108 cities and more than 80 countries. They can help you identify opportunities and give you the tools you need to become an exporter or increase your global sales. Locations of export assistance centers and information on other government export services can be found at export.gov.

At the same time we are creating an export culture, we are aggressively moving to ensure that U.S. entrepreneurs are treated fairly, that they can compete on a level playing field and that foreign countries don’t steal their intellectual property.

As Commerce Secretary, I want to thank all of the small business entrepreneurs here for your initiative, your enterprise, and what you do to keep our economy, employment numbers and exports growing.My congratulations again to the Phoenix Award winners.

Thank you.