The regional manager of the Small Business Administration’s International Trade Finance Programs is in Alaska encouraging small business owners to consider growing sales by exporting their goods and services. Pru Balatero has worked with the SBA for 30 years and says trade treaties with other nations continue to expand and SBA loan guarantees for helping businesses get started with exporting have increased from 2 million to 5 in the past year under the recovery act. He says boosting loan guarantee maximums are designed to stimulate lending.
Balatero says he was at an export conference in Washington in the spring of 2010, when President Obama showed up and introduced his national export initiative to the group. The President set a goal of doubling the nation’s exports within five years and Balatero says last year the nation saw an increase of 20 percent for exports. He says too many small businesses don’t consider how exporting can help grow their company.
Balatero says the SBA has a free online training course called Take your Business Global with an accompanying text book to help businesses get started in exporting.
Balatero will be speaking tomorrow morning at the BP Energy Center in Anchorage as part of the seminar called Successful Exporting in Today’s Global Economy. The event begins at 9 am.
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Lori Townsend is the chief editor, senior vice president of journalism and senior host for Alaska Public Media. You can send her news tips and program ideas for Talk of Alaska and Alaska Insight at ltownsend@alaskapublic.org or call 907-550-8452. Read more about Lori here.
