Local leaders are planning another push to expand the number of foreign-based companies with a major presence in the Pittsburgh region.
More than 100 companies from 29 foreign countries are based here, and the region can become a global business hub if efforts to attract new Asian-based companies are successful.
"We will be concentrating our efforts in 2009 toward bringing companies from China and India, and also from Vietnam, to the region," said Roger O. Cranville, senior vice president for global marketing at the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, a local agency that markets the region to companies that want to expand and bring jobs here.
Asian countries will have the majority of the world's population in the coming years, Cranville said. So a local delegation will visit China in March 2009 as a follow-up to a mission that took local leaders there in 2007.
Executives of more than 20 local companies doing business in China or planning to expand there began discussions during that trip about establishing a cargo operation at Pittsburgh International Airport.
In November last year, the Allegheny County Airport Authority announced it had signed a letter of intent with Xianyang International Airport in China to establish a trade route to this area.
The plan, still in negotiation, would create what officials called an "Air Silk Road" -- a reference to Xi'an's location at the eastern end of the 5,000-mile trade route that once linked the Roman Empire with imperial China.
A trip to India is scheduled in February, which will include a visit to Vietnam, Cranville said.
The large number of foreign-based companies here and recent new additions are evidence that the Pittsburgh region is an attractive place to do business.
According to Regional Alliance figures, the area has received $6 billion in investments by foreign companies, while Pittsburgh-based companies invested $11 billion outside of the United States in the last decade.
A sophisticated video game developer, Eutechnyx of the United Kingdom, recently announced plans to set up its U.S. headquarters in Pittsburgh, Cranville said.
"They selected Pittsburgh because of the talent coming out of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh," he said.
Even with the recession and the prospects for a continuing decline in world economies, the global marketplace is going to continue to be more interdependent, said Schuyler Foerster, president of the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh.
Foerster, who joined local leaders on the last mission to China, said its important to establish connections because other regions are doing it, too.
"There are a lot of other states and regions in this country that are dong this very actively, at a very high political level and are investing a lot of money into sending delegations to up and coming economies on all continents," he said. "If we don't do this, then we will totally lose out."
A number of previous missions helped to produce positive results for the region, said Kevin Evanto, spokesman for Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato, including a trip in 2006 to Germany.
That mission helped convince Sycor Americas, a German-owned technology company, to locate its North American headquarters at One Penn Center West, Robinson, the following year, turning down offers to move to Montreal, Toronto and Minneapolis.
Foreign companies are an important source of new businesses for the region's small businesses, said Brent Rondon of Duquesne University's Small Business Development Center.
For the last two weeks, the center has been hosting a delegation of consultants and representatives of business incubators from Mexico who are interested in making connections for their clients back home, he said.
"Sometimes, some of our companies can be distributors or sales agents for these types of companies," said Rondon, the center's manager of global business programs.
Exports are another reason to attract foreign-based companies.
Based on 2006 totals, Canada remains the biggest destination of Pittsburgh-area made goods and services. Canada imports $9.2 billion in products and services, followed by Mexico, which obtained $2.2 billion, he said.
China ranks third with $1.8 billion, followed by Japan, $1.3 billion. The United Kingdom is sixth with $1.3 billion.
"Our exports in 2007 were 15.4 percent better than the previous year," he said.
Foreign-based companies operating in the region employ about 50,000 workers with the average income of $51,441, Cranville said.
Germany, with 69 companies here, employs 11,250, making it first among foreign companies. The United Kingdom is second, with 58 companies and 7,500 employees.
Japan is third with 36 companies and 7,500 employes, followed by Canada, with 36 companies and 4,300 workers.
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