From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: SBA's Promotion of US Exports

Description: Audio interview by GAO staff with Loren Yager, Managing
Director, International Affairs and Trade

Related GAO Work: GAO-13-217: Export Promotion: Small Business
Administration Needs to Improve Collaboration to Implement Its Expanded
Role

Released: March 2013

[ Background Music ]

[ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news
and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It's
March 2013. Three years ago, the president announced the goal of
doubling U.S. exports over 5 years. A team lead by Loren Yager,
Managing Director of GAO's International Affairs and Trade team,
recently reviewed the Small Business Administration's role in working
with other agencies to achieve this goal through export promotion and
other efforts. GAO's Jeremy Cluchey sat down with Loren to talk about
what they found.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] What are some things the federal government is
doing to try and achieve the President's goal of doubling U.S. exports
over 5 years?

[ Loren Yager: ] You know there're really two parts to the President's
program. The first one was a very clear and ambitious goal of doubling
exports in 5 yeas. It really was quite ambitious as I mentioned and the
second part of that goal was to create some organization and maybe a
little more importance within the administration, especially at the
high levels, to create an export promotion cabinet. The government's
taken a lot of steps, but in particular what we focused on in our
report was some of the steps that the Congress instructed the Small
Business Administration to do. Particularly, the Congress passed a bill
at about the same time requiring the SBA to become more involved in
export promotion. And that, for example, includes providing financing
to some businesses that are going into exports for the first time. And
they also provide counseling to small business exporters that need some
help in trying to understand how it's possible to get involved in
exporting.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] Another thing your team looked at was how SBA
collaborates with others to promote exports. Can you talk about what
you found there?

[ Loren Yager: ] That's a concern that we raise in the report because
one of the things that we found even before we did this work is that
there's already quite a number of executive agencies and other offices
that are involved in export promotion in one way or another. And so we
wanted to make sure that as SBA finds its own niche in this area, that
they did it in such a way that they communicated with the other
agencies and they also collaborated with them. Just a couple of
examples--Export/Import Bank also provides financing to firms, so we
want to make sure that they're not competing with SBA. Similarly, the
Department of Commerce has already a network of field offices where
their officials counsel small business exporters on how to get involved
in those other markets. And so we want to make sure that they work with
their counterparts in these other agencies to make sure that they're
not competing and so make sure that they're using taxpayer dollars. And
also not confusing the private sector since there's so many people
already involved.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] You alluded, I think, to the 2010 Small Business
and Jobs Act and SBA has some responsibilities under that as well. Can
you talk a little bit about what those requirements are and how well
SBA is meeting them?

[ Loren Yager: ] There were a couple. I think we grouped them into two
different parts. One, they had some targets in terms of hiring and
training of the staff. They've done fairly well in terms of training
their staff to make sure that the people they send out to provide the
kinds of counseling advice are adequately trained and expert in those
areas and they've done pretty well in that. With regard to hiring,
they're further behind. They haven't nearly gotten the numbers of
people out there that the congress has instructed them to do. So I'd
say they're doing fairly well on the training but on the staffing,
they're really falling behind the congressional targets.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] And taking that one step further, can you talk
about any steps that GAO is recommending in this report?

[ Loren Yager: ] Well I think the main area that we made a couple
recommendations--we want to make sure that SBA clearly defines its
niche. As we mentioned or as I mentioned earlier, this is already a
pretty busy playing field with a lot of U.S. agencies involved. So we
want to make sure that they're protecting the taxpayer dollars and also
not confusing small business. So we thought it was important that they
communicate and collaborate with their counterparts very clearly to
define what it is that they do for small businesses as compared to what
the other agencies are already doing. So we think there's some--we gave
a couple of specific recommendations to make sure that they do that.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] And finally for taxpayers interested in what the
government is doing to foster global commerce for U.S. businesses,
what's the bottom line here?

[ Loren Yager: ] Well, obviously the U.S. agencies can help some small
businesses in trying to get out and get involved in export markets.
Ultimately whether the United States reaches that very ambitious goal
of doubling exports is not going to be determined by whether SBA or
even the other agencies are involved. But certainly U.S. agencies can
help small businesses, particularly when they haven't had much
experience in getting out in the export market. There's a lot to be
learned and some of the agencies can be helpful in those areas.

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the next episode of GAO's Watchdog Report for more from the
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