Export Promotion

This document is an E-supplement to GAO-09-144. It presents information from a GAO survey of states' trade offices throughout the United States on the nature of states' export promotion services and their partnerships with the Commercial Service (CS) of the U.S. Department of Commerce. We surveyed these offices to obtain information including (1) the types of export promotion services these states' trade offices provide and the user fees charged, (2) the number of state trade office staff providing these services, (3) whether small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) can use state grant programs or direct payments to defray the cost of CS's export promotion programs and services, (4) the importance of CS services to the operations of states' trade offices, and (5) the effect of CS user fees on SMEs' participation in CS export promotion programs. We surveyed all 50 states' trade offices and received responses from 45 of them. For a further discussion of our scope and methodology, see Export Promotion: Commerce Needs Better Information to Evaluate Its Fee-Based Programs and Customers. (GAO-09-144). We administered the survey from May 2008 to October 2008 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.