Welcome to our October newsletter.  You will see as you read through this newsletter we have been extremely busy on all fronts: trade, tourism, economic development and grants management.  September brought with it the 10-day mission to Asia that Director Weed and Mark Calhoon joined.  Mark led the complex efforts to execute a successful mission on behalf of businesses in Washington.  The industry focus of the mission was aerospace, clean energy, technology and tourism.  Overall there was great relationship building, many connections made and now continued conversations occurring in the follow up.  The focus areas of the mission were:  FDI (foreign direct investment), smart grid technology opportunities in China and connecting Washington aerospace companies to Asian market opportunities.   Some quick stats from the mission:  109 mission participants; 62 organizations of which 26 were for-profit company representatives; and 21 company meetings organized by Commerce.  Overall, there was a fantastic amount of effort put into the mission by a number of people and the results have been extremely positive thus far.    

The state export initiative remains a top priority for this division.  Our goals at the state level are:

1.       To increase the number of Washington companies exporting by 30% in 5 years.

2.       To directly assist Washington business to achieve $600M in export sales through export 

           assistance programs at WSDA and COM over 5 years.

3.       To increase general statewide exports by approximately 45% to over $100B per year by  

          2015.

There is a lot of work underway to set up this program and continue to promote the value of exporting.

You can read in detail below about the accomplishments of the Business Services Division last month.  As always, I welcome your questions and comments about our work here.

 

Marketing and Communications 

ChooseWashington.com Analytics
For the month of September, the site attracted 4,383 visits reflecting about a 12% decline from August 2010 due to some technical issues on the site.  The site is currently experiencing slow load times and will be repaired by the end of the month. On average visitors spent 2.54 minutes on the site indicating the content held their interest.  The majority of our visitors came from referring sites, such as our economic development partners, at more than 62 percent, an excellent result. The site increased in search engine referrals coming in at nearly 22% and the remaining 15% arrived directly to the site.

Geographically the majority of visits come from Washington State (2,840) and within the U.S. (4,052).  Internationally, Canada led with 63 visits, followed by Germany with 56 visits and Japan with 26 visits.

The most popular page on the site remains the landing page with 1,364 or 12% of overall page views, followed by the key industries landing page with 444 page views.  Interesting to note, the county landing pages was ranked as the next most popular page for the first time since the launch of the site.

Publications

"These Clouds Rain Valuable Jobs, Tax Money in the Pacific Northwest" was featured in the September 15th edition of Marple's Northwest Business Letter.  Commerce partnered with the Grant County Economic Development Council to provide data and information to editor Jim Murez to create this overview on the growing data center industry in the state.  The newsletter is distributed to businesses throughout Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.

Area Development Corporate Directory was updated with Washington State data including demographics, taxes, incentives, manufacturing categories and contact information. 

Commerce staff provided information and data for the state to the editorial team at Business Xpansion magazine for their upcoming focus on "Quality Places" including Washington State in the November/December 2010 issue. 

 
Site Selector Outreach
To promote the state's business environment and to build on the success of the Washington State advertorial in the September issue of FORTUNE magazine, nearly 50 copies of the magazine and a letter were sent to targeted site selectors nationally. 

Marketing Tools
Marketing toolkits to promote Washington State to businesses is available for partners to use for tradeshows and outreach.  In addition to the toolkit, a video featuring Washington State was developed for the China Trade Mission and is available for use.  Contact George Sharp for your tool kit or video.

Guide to Foreign Investment

For the trade mission to China, Commerce staff partnered with the Washington State Bar Association to translate into Chinese the "Guide to Foreign Investment" to inform investors of the opportunities that exist in the state.  This DVD guidebook covers the A-Z's of foreign investment from choosing a legal entity to taxation and labor laws.  The DVD also includes a welcome from Governor Gregoire, industry fact sheets, maps, videos and information on international study and educational programs.  For a copy to use in your FDI recruitment efforts, contact James Palmer.

Danish journalist David Rosborg-Larsen will visit Seattle and the Olympic Peninsula from October 16-19th.  Contact Tammy Guill for more inforation on the tours.