Commerce restarts U.S. metropolitan-based export data series

Commerce restarts U.S. metropolitan-based export data series The U.S. Commerce Department has restarted its data series that measures export values by metropolitan area.
   “This will be a great tool to help regions compare themselves with other metro areas,” said Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez in a speech Thursday to the International Poultry and Feed Exposition in Atlanta. “It will also be a way to identify trends in export growth over time on a regional basis.”
   The last report of this nature was conducted by the Commerce Department in 2001.
   The new data series, which was compiled by the department’s Census Bureau and Manufacturing and Services unit of the International Trade Administration, contains merchandise export values for 369 metropolitan areas. (Service export values are not included in the series.) The general breakdown for the data series includes:
   ' Top five merchandise export categories (three-digit North American Industry Classification System numbers) by value.
   ' Merchandise export value and some commodity detail for exports to 10 major geographic and economic country groups, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, European Union, Asia and South America.
   ' For largest metro areas, top five merchandise export destinations by country.
   The Commerce Department said all metropolitan merchandise export numbers were tabulated by matching the “origin of movement” five-digit ZIP codes entered on U.S. export declarations with counties that are assigned to specific metro areas by the Office of Management and Budget.
   Here are some highlights from the 2006 metro export series:
   ' Seven metro areas posted 2006 export sales of $25 billion or more. These metro areas were responsible for 30 percent of total U.S. merchandise exports in 2006.
   ' An additional 30 metro areas experienced export sales of $5 billion to $24 billion in 2006.
   ' The New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island area was the nation’s top exporting metropolis in 2006, shipping $55.2 billion in merchandise to foreign markets. Following are Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown ($53.3 billion), Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana ($48.7 billion), Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue ($46.3 billion), and Detroit-Warren-Livonia ($43.3 billion).
   To review the complete data series and methodology, access www.trade.gov/metrodata.