The U.S. Conference of Mayors heads to Jacksonville Feb. 23-25 to develop a national agenda to expand and modernize U.S. ports.
Mayor Alvin Brown will host the event as chair of the conference’s new Task Force on Metro Exports and Ports. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is the president of the mayors’ conference.
A news release said the meeting will attract mayors from across the country, as well as U.S. seaport experts, federal trade officials and export strategists.
They will discuss national policies regarding cost-effectively transporting exports from American cities to global markets.
The “National Leadership Meeting on Exports, Ports as Key to Job Creation” is scheduled at the Hyatt Downtown.
U.S. metro areas account for 88 percent of the nation’s exports, according to a Metro Economies report released last week at the Conference’s 80th Winter meeting in Washington, D.C.
The report, prepared by IHS Global Insight, projects that export values will increase 4.2 percent and import values will rise 3.2 percent this year, said the release.
Currently, 1 percent of U.S. businesses export and 58 percent of those businesses export to only one market.
“This meeting is about job creation and keeping our metro economies globally competitive,” Brown said in a statement.
“Exports are job generators and account for 8.8 percent of our gross domestic product — up from just 6.9 percent a decade ago. To maintain our competitive position, we must modernize our ports, adopt a national freight policy and develop metro-based export strategies,” he said.
JAX Chamber officials will participate in the meeting to serve as a resource and to discuss Jacksonville’s export strategies and the role of the port of Jacksonville in the area economy.
Siemens officials will join to provide technical expertise and serve as the national sponsor of the meeting.
The meeting will include Brown; Villaraigosa; Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, the conference vice chair of the exports and ports task force; Tom Cochran, the conference’s CEO and executive director; and other mayors.