Businesses

When the Congress passed title II of the Export Enhancement Act of 1992, it was concerned that the existing federal export promotion programs lacked coordination and an overall strategy. To improve export services, the Congress mandated, in the 1992 act, that the TPCC develop a governmentwide strategic plan that establishes priorities for federal activities supporting U.S. exports, and propose an annual unified federal trade promotion budget that supports the plan. Specifically, the TPCC expected that development of a government strategy would be helped by devising performance measures as a means to reallocate resources and attain a unified budget; establishment of partnerships with the public and private sectors would be assisted by such actions as simplifying federal services, setting up “one-stop shops” for exporters, and streamlining the export working capital programs of the Eximbank and the SBA; and provision of export services for U.S. exporters similar to those received by foreign competitors would help U.S. companies compete on a “level playing field” abroad. Results of Our Past Work on Government Efforts to Improve U.S. Export Promotion Programs

Our past work has focused on several elements of the governmentwide strategy to improve the delivery of export promotion programs. Steps Taken to Help U.S. Export Assistance Centers

In creating the nationwide network of one-stop shops, representatives of the Department of Commerce and the SBA—two federal agencies with extensive export promotion field networks—were combined and, in some cases, the Eximbank representatives were included as well. Since the Eximbank and the SBA have programs designed to increase the availability of export working capital for businesses, the TPCC recommended that the Eximbank and the SBA harmonize their programs and procedures to make them more streamlined, consistent, and simple. Past GAO work has addressed the nature and extent of U.S. foreign competitors’ export finance programs, a key U.S. effort to combat foreign competitor practices, and opportunities for reducing the cost of the Eximbank’s programs while remaining competitive with programs of competitor export credit agencies. However, a driving force behind the passage of the Export Enhancement Act was to identify areas of overlap and duplication among the various federal export promotion activities and propose means of eliminating them. While a number of initiatives have been taken, our past review of the export assistance centers raised several issues related to the integration of the delivery of services. The TPCC agencies have not since evaluated how effectively these centers are operating to achieve the intended objective of streamlining the delivery and quality of services to small- and medium-sized business. The TPCC plans to review the effectiveness of the centers in 1998. Export-Import Bank: Reauthorization Issues (GAO/T-NSIAD-97-147, Apr. Additional copies are $2 each.
Why GAO Did This Study

GAO discussed issues related to the U.S. government's role in promoting exports, focusing on the: (1) evolution of the government strategy designed to reshape federal export promotion activities; and (2) results and issues related to GAO's past work on U.S. government efforts to improve U.S. export promotion programs.

What GAO Found

GAO noted that: (1) Congress, in enacting the Export Enhancement Act of 1992, required the Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee (TPCC) to improve the delivery of export assistance to U.S. firms; (2) the TPCC efforts have focused on three broad areas: (a) devising a governmentwide strategy and a unified budget that would set priorities; (b) developing partnerships with all levels of government and the private sector; and (c) dealing with obstacles that U.S. businesses encounter as they compete against businesses supported by their foreign governments; (3) the TPCC has taken a number of steps in each of these areas, but some of their goals remain elusive; (4) with respect to the strategy, the cooperating agencies have established priority foreign markets and increased the visibility of the components and distribution of the aggregate federal expenditures on export promotion activities; (5) partnerships have been developed through a number of initiatives, including a network of export assistance centers to help unify the delivery of export promotion services, and making the U.S. Export-Import Bank's (Eximbank) and the Small Business Administration's (SBA) working capital program procedures more consistent and to enable exporters to receive financing more easily; (6) the TPCC has also worked to keep U.S. financing programs fully competitive; (7) GAO's work also suggests that outstanding issues remain regarding the effectiveness of the cooperative efforts of the agencies under the TPCC to achieve the congressional objectives of the 1992 legislation; (8) for example, while the expenditures of the 19 federal agencies are now clearly presented in one place, major challenges remain for achieving the unified budget that would align resources with national priorities and program performance; (9) while the Department of Commerce and the SBA have colocated in 19 cities, with some closer ties with Eximbank officials, no evaluation has been completed on how effectively these centers are operating to achieve the intended objective of streamlining the delivery and quality of services to small- and medium-sized businesses; and (10) the elapsing of 5 years since the passage of the Export Enhancement Act provides a good opportunity for Congress to assess the achievements and remaining challenges for the effort to strategize, streamline, and coordinate the wide array of federal export promotion efforts through the institutional mechanism of the TPCC.