THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NONPROFIT AND PUBLIC SECTOR COLLABORATION IN FACILITATING INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN WEST MICHIGAN

In the last few years, dramatic developments have heightened U.S. attention focused on international trade. A distinguishing feature of global restructuring has been the increase of U.S. abroad and the even sharper expansion of foreign in the United States. In 1995, global trade practices were dramatically impacted by the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This agreement (replacing GATT) assists in the sweeping reduction and elimination of duties and tariffs. The accord will promote a regulatory infrastructure that advances the trend toward a global village. In addition to these developments, the European Union grew to 15 countries. The passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) further escalated the movement towards a global economy. As global trade increases, the cadence of change will continue to accelerate, making it essential for communities to seek access to new or expanding markets if they hope to prosper. Although as recent WTO meetings in Seattle indicate, these transformations are not without uncertainty and opposition. Yet, additional foreign markets are opening as many countries that have tightly controlled economies begin to participate more freely in the international marketplace. In the past, American firms may have been hesitant to tap into foreign markets, because the American market had not been fully saturated. This logic contrasts with many of our economic competitors such as England, Germany and Japan who have long understood the need to expand the search for new markets due to the limitations inherent in their domestic markets. However, many U.S. firms have begun to realize that they are dealing with foreign imports in our domestic market or are using parts from foreign firms, even if the firm is not directly engaged in exporting. With growing concerns about the loss of manufacturing jobs due to import competition, exports are seen by many state and local policy makers as a way to save domestic manufacturing jobs and industries. For the West Michigan regional economy, export trade promises greater stability that diverse foreign markets can provide over the business cycles of the traditional domestic market with its substantial uncertainty and turbulence. Clearly, no sector has a greater multiplier effect than the manufacturing sector. The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates approximately 19,000 jobs are created for every $1 billion in export trade. Growing regional interest in international trade has taken two broad strategies. One has been to promote reverse investment by encouraging the location of foreign business operations and investments on U.S. soil. The other strategy and focus of this research has been public and nonprofit sector efforts to stimulate export trade for local business. Recently Fortune magazine (1998) listed Grand Rapids among the top ten cities (number 10) in the United States that have demonstrated the most growth and wealth creation and was named one of the Best Cities for Business over the last five-ten years. This research investigates the importance of collaboration by the nonprofit, public and educational sectors in efforts to promote international trade in the West Michigan region. West Michigan includes Kent, Ottawa, Muskegon and Allegan counties (KOMA) with Grand Rapids as the largest city. This four-county area functions as an interconnected economic region. City/county boundaries have little significance in the day-to-day functioning of the regional enterprise economy. Certainly one of the reasons for the escalation of local economic development activity can be explained by the increased mobility of capital which is now international in scope, leading to intense competition for cities to maintain their economic and fiscal bases (Friedland 1983; Kantor and David 1988; Clark and Gaile 1989). For most cities, international economic restructuring has resulted in hard economic times, especially for regions dependent on manufacturing employment (Fainstein et al. …

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