FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, January 14, 2011
CONTACT OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS
202-482-4883

Twenty-four U.S. businesses will join Commerce Secretary Gary Locke for a business development mission to India on February 6-11.  The businesses joining the trade mission are based in 13 states across the country and more than half of them are small- and medium-sized companies.

The delegation, which also includes senior officials from the Export-Import Bank (EX-IM) and the Trade Development Agency (TDA), will make stops in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, where Locke will highlight export opportunities for U.S. businesses in the advanced industrial sectors, of civil-nuclear trade, defense and security, civil aviation, and information and communication technologies. Locke accompanied President Obama to India in November, where they witnessed more than $10 billion in business deals between U.S. companies and Indian private sector and government entities, supporting 50,000 American jobs.

“Exports are leading the U.S. economic recovery, spurring future economic growth and creating jobs in America,” Locke said. “The business leaders joining me on this mission see the great potential to sell their goods and services to India, helping drive innovation and create jobs in both countries.”

The India business development mission will help build on the exporting success U.S. companies had 2010 – up 17 percent compared to the same period in 2009. It will be Locke’s second trade mission as Commerce Secretary; in May, he led a clean energy business development mission to China and Indonesia.

Exports represent a critical part of the economy and are a key component of the Obama administration’s efforts to spur new job creation. One year ago, President Obama outlined his National Export Initiative (NEI), which seeks to double exports by 2015, in support of several million new U.S. jobs. The NEI enhances the U.S. government’s trade promotion efforts, increases credit to businesses – especially small- and medium-sized businesses – looking to export, and continues to improve efforts to remove trade barriers for U.S. companies in foreign markets.

The Department of Commerce, through the Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee (TPCC), leads the administration’s trade promotion efforts. The TPCC provides a platform for the Secretary of Commerce to advance a government-wide agenda on trade promotion and to directly engage the heads of the other TPCC agencies.

Commerce’s International Trade Administration helps American companies export their products and services around the world, utilizing some 1,500 U.S. Commercial Service staff stationed in 77 countries across the globe. Last year, the U.S. Commercial Service helped facilitate billions of dollars in U.S. export sales, supporting jobs across the country.

The delegation includes:

ABSi Corporation, Rockville, MD

Aero Controls, Inc., Auburn, WA

Curtiss-Wright Flow Control, Brea, CA

Exelon Nuclear Partners, Kennett Square, PA

FLIR Systems, Inc., Wilsonville, OR

Fluidic Energy, Scottsdale, AZ

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, Inc., Wilmington, NC

Intuit Inc., Mountain View, CA

Kent Displays, Kent, OH

Kulite Semiconductor Products, Inc., Leonia, NJ

Lockheed Martin Corporation, Bethesda, MD

nLIGHT Corporation, Vancouver, WA

North Star Aerospace, Inc., Auburn, WA

NuScale Power, Inc., Portland, OR

Oshkosh Corporation, Oshkosh, WI

Palantir Technologies, Palo Alto, CA

Pelican Products, Inc., Torrance, CA

Rajant Corporation, Malvern, PA

Rapiscan Systems Inc., Torrance, CA

The Boeing Company, Chicago, IL

Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., Waltham, MA

Transco Products, Inc., Chicago, IL

VeriSign, Inc., Dulles, VA

Westinghouse Electric Company LLC, Monroeville, PA

Visit the Commerce Department’s India trade mission website at http://trade.gov/indiamission2011/index.asp for updates on the trade mission.