A Governor's Guide to Trade and Global Competitiveness

In A Governors Guide to Trade and Global Competitiveness, NGA explores the changing global environment for state trade and investment promotion.  Globalization requires that all companies develop cooperative business networks and more sophisticated strategies in the global marketplace.  This, in turn, presents states with three important challenges: 1) How to help their business clusters gain access to global markets and business networks to benefit from globalization. 2) How to find opportunities for trade, investment, and international partnerships for states' small and medium-sized companies; and 3) How to ensure that mature industries with a high risk of worker dislocation (especially those employing workers from low-income communities), benefit from state international policies.

To meet these challenges, the report suggests that governors can play four prominent roles with respect to the international marketplace.  Governors can serve as advocates of global trade and development for state businesses, legislators, and state employees, and as economic ambassadors to overseas national and state-level governments, developing relationships that lead to long-term trade, investment, and partnerships among businesses. Governors are their states' most important conveners, bringing together state constituencies and international groups to work on high-priority issues. Governors can also increase the effectiveness of state efforts by acting as brokers of federal, state and private resources that allow regional business clusters to organize and engage in international markets more effectively.