Metro Atlanta Export Plan launches this week

Worldwide Editing will attend a press conference on Wednesday, June 3 at which the Metro Atlanta Chamber will announce the official release of the Atlanta Metro Export Plan (MEP). The MEP is a new plan to boost economic growth in the 29-county Metro Atlanta area by strengthening companies and creating jobs by increasing exports. The Chamber led the effort to develop the plan after Brookings Institution and JP Morgan Chase invited the Atlanta Metropolitan region to join the Global Cities Initiative (GCI), a $10 million, five-year Brookings and Chase project to help America’s metros strengthen their regional economies by becoming more competitive in the global marketplace. Worldwide Editing is honored that the Metro Chamber asked us to help write the Atlanta MEP. The Metro Chamber, in which Worldwide Editing is active through its Global Commerce Council, was instrumental in bringing key partners together to produce the MEP. Those partners include the Georgia Department of Economic Development, the Mayor’s Office of the City of Atlanta, the U.S. Export Assistance Center, JP Morgan Chase, UPS, and numerous metro Atlanta regional economic development partners. At the Wednesday press conference, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Mayor Reed will release the published MEP report and the Chamber will will showcase strategies to implement the MEP. Those strategies will include a new Atlanta Export Web Portal and the community roadshows it will launch to engage more of the region’s local companies to export. JPMorgan Chase will also make a major announcement during the press conference. Metro Atlanta’s decision to participate in the MEP comes at a critical time. Data shows that metro Atlanta’s export intensity (exports as a percentage of economic output) is 9.5 percent, well behind the 11.5 percent average for its peers in the nation’s top 100 metros. This opportunity gap is one of the primary reasons metro Atlanta joined the GCI. The press conference will be held at 2 p.m. in the Hodges Room of the Centergy Square Building at 75 Fifth Street at Tech Square on the edge of the Georgia Tech campus.