McCarthy Criticizes State’s Trade Policy

California’s international trade policy needs an overhaul, Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy told the World Trade Assn. in Newport Beach on Thursday.

Speaking to a group of 50 at the the association’s monthly luncheon, McCarthy said that California’s trade missions--in Tokyo, London, and Mexico City--have done a poor job of lobbying for state businesses.

“Our trade offices are not very useful,” he said. “People that work in them have to do more than just hand out pamphlets. They have to know how to put deals together. We have to put people there who know what they’re doing and pay them what they’re worth.”

McCarthy said two new state trade offices will open later this year in Frankfurt and Hong Kong, and he called for offices in the Pacific Rim cities of Seoul; Taipei, Taiwan; Bangkok, Thailand, and Jakarta, Indonesia.

This year the state will spend about $2 million maintaining and opening the overseas offices and an additional $13 million promoting trade abroad, according to the state Department of Finance.

“The only measure of these offices is the dollar value of the deals cracked,” he said. “They need to be reviewed every six months and to add staff where things are happening.”

The state bureaucracy is also lacking direction because responsibility for trade policy is divided among many agencies, McCarthy said.

He called for reorganization of the $3-billion state Business, Transportation and Housing Agency so that trade authority can be centralized.

“We need to develop an industry and trade agency and put a trade expert in charge of it,” McCarthy said. “California companies are starting to do some joint ventures with both European and Pacific Rim countries, but there is no overall strategy.”