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Hard Work Boosts Exports

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“U.S. Firms Need Support to Do a Better Job in Exports” (Letters, May 5) is cute, pat and essentially inaccurate! Harvey Sacks persistently ignores the fact that the city (through the Los Angeles International Trade Development Corp. and the Economic Development Board), the county (through its Economic Development Board) and the state (through the California State World Trade Commission and the State Export Finance Board) have offered support of all kinds to the California export community. The governor, lieutenant governor and the secretary of state are personally and dedicatedly involved in state export expansion programs.

As Sacks says, it is mandatory that we develop an export marketplace of substance so that our trade can be balanced. If we don’t, there will surely be an American recession and eventually a worldwide depression. The cure for the problem lies not in support programs. American manufacturers must start to work seriously in foreign marketplaces and devise products acceptable to foreign buyers. “Made in America” is not good enough. It must be “Made in America to suit markets throughout the world.” The failure of America to overcome its mounting trade deficit includes, (but is not limited to), the following essential points:

- American manufacturers are going to have to take the foreign marketplace seriously; at present most of them don’t.

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- The American banking system will have to start supporting the export constituency, especially small- and medium-sized exporters; historically they have not done so.

- The federal government will have to remove the long list of export disincentives so that American exporters have the same ability to trade as our foreign counterparts.

We exporters don’t need more support programs from the state, city and county governments. We need to receive some support, instead of nonsupport, from the federal government, and we need to work harder and make better products that are properly suited to the needs of the overseas buyer.

CHARLES H. NEVIL

Chairman, World Trade Week

Los Angeles

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