This week, U.S. Commerce Secretary and former CEO John Bryson traveled to Florida to meet with local business leaders and discuss his priorities for supporting advanced manufacturing and encouraging exports. On Thursday evening, Bryson delivered remarks to the National Association of Manufacturers Board of Directors dinner in Boca Raton, Fla. Friday morning, he visited the Port of Miami and took a tour of Pavilion Furniture, a Miami Gardens, Fla.  company that is working with the Department of Commerce’s Commercial Service to expand the exports of its products. Following the tour, Bryson delivered remarks and joined Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez and local business leaders for a discussion about how the private and public sector can work together to expand exports and create jobs.

Business leaders participating in the discussion included Mike Buzzella, President and CEO of Pavilion Furniture, Raj Rangaswamy, President of Target Engineering, and Luis Arguello, CEO of DemeTech. Target Engineering, an engineering services firm, will be joining Secretary Bryson on a Commerce-led trade mission to India at the end of the month. DemeTech Corporation, a producer of surgical sutures and blades, previously joined a Commerce Department trade mission to Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. has recently experienced dramatic job growth in the U.S. manufacturing sector. In the past two years U.S. manufacturing created over 400,000 jobs – over 80,000 in the first two months of this year alone. Bryson highlighted some of the Administration’s initiatives to support advanced manufacturing, including the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation. The Network, which President Obama proposed last week, would be a $1 billion investment in up to 15 institutes of advanced manufacturing research and experience across the country, designed to help make U.S. manufacturers more innovative and competitive.

Bryson also shared news on Commerce’s efforts to boost exports. This week marks the two-year anniversary of the signing of the Executive Order creating the National Export Initiative, when President Obama set the goal of doubling U.S. exports by the end of 2014. Earlier this week, the Commerce Department released new data showing that jobs supported by U.S. exports increased by 1.2 million between 2009 and 2011. In 2011, exports supported approximately 9.7 million jobs, and the value of U.S. exports of goods and services exceeded $2.1 trillion for the first time in U.S. history. 

In addition, Bryson discussed the U.S.-Korea Trade Agreement (KORUS), which went into effect yesterday. Korea is the world’s 12^th largest economy, and under the new agreement, about 80 percent of Korea’s tariffs on U.S. industrial products are now dropping to zero. KORUS is America’s most significant trade agreement in nearly two decades, and is estimated to increase U.S. exports by approximately $11 billion, support tens of thousands of American jobs, and open up Korea’s $1 trillion economy for America’s workers and businesses.

At both stops, Secretary Bryson stressed that The Commerce Department is dedicated to providing business across the country the resources they need to build products here and sell them everywhere.