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For Immediate Release: October 20, 2010
Contact: Cory Churches (202) 482-3809
U.S. Department of Commerce's Manufacture America Initiative Highlights Resources to Boost Comptitiveness of U.S. Manufacturing
CHICAGO – The U.S. Commerce Department’s Assistant Secretary for Manufacturing and Services Nicole Y. Lamb-Hale was joined today by Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property Sharon Barner, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Deputy Assistant Secretary Don Graves, U.S. Representative Melissa Bean, and business, finance, and trade experts to expose manufacturers to strategies and resources for new growth opportunities, exporting, workforce development, and access to capital. More than 150 Chicagoland manufacturers participated in the second regional conference of the U.S. Department of Commerce's Manufacture America Initiative.
The United States is the world’s largest manufacturing economy, employing 12 million Americans in the production of $1.6 trillion in manufactured products – 18 percent of the world’s manufactured goods.
“We are excited to be in Chicagoland, home to many innovative and entrepreneurial manufacturers,” said Lamb-Hale. “We are committed to revitalizing the manufacturing sector across the U.S. and look forward to continuing today’s conversation. Chicagoland manufacturers are critical to putting Americans back to work and we are here to provide support in that effort.”
As part of its efforts to help American manufacturing thrive, the Commerce Department's innovative Manufacture America Initiative helps manufacturers rethink, retool and rebuild their operations through exploring new processes, sources of finance, Internet marketing, and exporting. The Commerce Department is collaborating with several federal agencies and other organizations to connect local manufacturers to local, state, federal and private sector resources to help them to be competitive in the global marketplace. A third Manufacture America conference will be held in December in South Carolina.
In 2009, Chicagoland (Illinois only) had 326,600 manufacturing job, accounting for more than half of Illinois’ manufacturing jobs.
A prominent message to the manufacturers was to consider expanding to markets abroad. Exporting is often associated with significantly higher wages. On average, export-intensive industries in the U.S. manufacturing industries pay 18 percent higher wages. Illinois’ export shipments of merchandise in 2009 totaled $41.6 billion, the 6th largest export total among all states that year. Illinois’ $5.5 billion increase in exports from 2005 to 2009 was the 8th largest in the United States
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